New Ford car park tech can avoid stray shopping trolleys automatically

Many of us have experienced that sinking feeling of returning to our car in the supermarket car park, only to find a stray trolley has drifted into and subsequently dented our pride and joy. Such travesties could soon be a thing of the past, though, because Ford has just patented a new technology that could enable cars to autonomously avoid collisions when they are parked.

Filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office as application US12617393B2, the “System For Detecting Moving Objects”, utilises onboard cameras, sensors and software to detect moving objects and calculate their trajectory. The car is then placed into one of four states: idle, aware, warning or evade.

If the car doesn’t expect a collision is imminent, it remains in its low-powered ‘idle’ setting, monitoring any change in trajectory. If the probability of a collision is reckoned to be between zero and 10 per cent, the car instead switches to its ‘aware’ state, readying the powertrain, brakes and steering in case evasive action is needed.

Above 10 per cent risk, the car will engage its ‘warning’ mode, flashing the lights and honking the horn to alert whatever is heading its way. Finally, if a collision is almost certain (anything above 90 per cent probability), the car will activate its ‘evade’ function, autonomously manoeuvring elsewhere to “reduce the probability of impact without impacting another vehicle or other structure”.

Of course, this won’t always be possible; if the car is boxed in, for example, it wouldn’t necessarily meet the above criteria to avoid other impacts. In this case, onboard cameras will be deployed to record the collision. If the approaching vehicle is one with smart vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) capability, the car with Ford’s patented software could transmit an instruction to apply the brakes in order for a collision to be negated.

All of this could come in handy not only to avoid car park scrapes, but also to provide evidence for any potential legal or insurance proceedings. It’s unclear whether we’ll see this software rolled out anytime soon, but a Ford spokesperson said: “The ideas described within a patent application should not be viewed as an indication of our business or product plans. No matter what the patent application outlines, we will always put the customer first in the decision making behind the development and marketing of new products and services.”

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