• Ford’s Traffic Jam Assist brings driverless cars a step closer

    by  • June 26, 2012 • Motoring News, Technology

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    2012 Ford Traffic Jam Assist - driver viewpoint

    Ford’s autonomous driving option for traffic jams will begin appearing in cars some time between 2017 and 2025.

    Ford is working to join the dots on its current advanced driver assistance features to produce a car that can drive itself in slow moving motorway traffic.

    Traffic Jam Assist, which builds on existing features such as Active Park Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Keeping Aid, will also cut the time drivers spend in gridlock as daydreamers would not be holding up traffic.

    This intelligent driving technology could potentially make an appearance in Ford vehicles by 2017, with 2025 the outer deadline for the motor company.

    Traffic Jam Assist uses radar and camera technology to keep pace with other vehicles and provides automated steering control to stay in the current lane, reducing driver stress and potentially improving vehicle flow.

    Journey times can be reduced by 37.5 per cent and delays by 20 per cent when a quarter of the vehicles on a road are equipped to automatically follow the traffic ahead, according to simulations quoted by Ford.

    Ford engineer Joseph Urhahne said that drivers spend more than 30 percent of their time in heavy traffic.

    He added: ‘If there’s one thing more frustrating than being stuck in a jam, it’s being stuck in a jam where drivers are slow to keep pace with the movement around them.

    ‘Traffic Jam Assist could make unavoidable traffic jams less stressful and less tiring for the drivers who must negotiate them.’

    As with most new technologies, there is a caveat, however, as Traffic Jam Assist will only work when there are no pedestrians, cyclists or animals, and lanes must be clearly marked.

    Many of the sensing technologies required for Traffic Jam Assist are already available on current Ford models, including the Focus, C-MAX and Grand C-MAX.

    Independent steering already features on both Ford Active Park Assist, which controls vehicle steering for hands-free parking, and Lane Keeping Aid, which provides steering input to assist the driver to steer the vehicle back into lane if an unintentional drift is detected. Lane Keeping Aid also provides the camera technology required to monitor its lane position.

    Traffic Jam Assist’s automatic speed regulation requirement is supported by Ford Powershift transmission as well as Adaptive Cruise Control, a radar-based system which helps to maintain a set distance to other vehicles.

    Watch this video to see how Traffic Jam Assist works.

    Meanwhile, in the near-term, Ford plans to further develop its Active Park Assist technology, adding perpendicular parking to the parallel parking manoeuvres already possible.

    Ford executive chairman, Bill Ford said: ‘I’m confident that we will see many of these advances on the road in this mid-term period because the early versions are already being designed, and in most cases, tested.’