The introduction of electric vehicles expands the possibilities for using fundamentally new control systems that increase the safety of the trip, reduce driver fatigue and increase car maneuverability. Ford has announced the creation of a new digital assistant Ford Co-Pilot360, allowing a trip in the offline Active Drive Assist mode, in which the driver does not have to keep the hands on the steering wheel.
According to the developers of the leading carmaker, the first car with the Co-Pilot360 system will be the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric crossover, while other future models are scheduled to enter the market in 2021.
The new Hands-Free Driving option for the driver is implemented using special equipment that is included with the Ford Co-Pilot360 Active 2.0 Prep Package. It includes a video camera installed in the passenger compartment and used to control the driver’s direction of vision. A few more cameras and radars are located outside the car and are needed to track the situation around a moving car.
Steering a car without hands on the steering wheel will be available on specially defined sections of expressways in the United States and Canada. It is noteworthy that today there are over 160 thousand kilometers of roads on which you can use Hands-Free Driving. During the system’s viability testing, Ford testers already traveled over one million kilometers. It is also reported that the new Ford Co-Pilot360 was the logical development of the previous Ford cruise control system known as Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control.
The system starts the Hands-Free Mode, in which the infrared camera inside the cockpit begins to track the position of the driver’s head and the direction of his gaze. The system starts to signal if the driver’s eyes are permanently withdrawn from the road or are closed. In case a person does not respond to a warning system, the car forcibly reduces speed. This approach eliminates the need for the driver to constantly keep his hands on the steering wheel.
The Co-Pilot360 system provides various functions, such as the Hands-Free, Lane Centering Mode, Road Edge Detection, Blind Spot Assist and Adaptive Cruise Control functions, as well as Active Park Assist 2.0, which allows you to automatically park the car in any accessible place.
Ford Mustang Mach-E electric crossover was scheduled to enter the market at the end of this year, but the events related to the global pandemic forced the developers to postpone their plans to 2021. At the same time, it was stated that the car will receive 30% faster charging than previously announced.
