Hands Free driver assist Coming to Ford Vehicles, including Ranger

[P. A. Schilke]

Hi Folks,

From my Retiree news letter. I have known about this for quite some time but sworn to secrecy. My friend that visited in March is lead on many aspects of the hands free driver assist. Ranger is TBD but likely 2022 Model year.

ord Co-Pilot360™ Technology Adds Hands-Free Driving, Over-The-Air Updates and More to Help Ford Customers Feel More Relaxed and Confident





Jun-18-2020



John Gilchrist, Mustang Mach-E engineer, demonstrates Active Drive Assist, a new driver-assist feature that allows for hands-free driving on more than 100,000 miles of divided highways in all 50 states and Canada.
Dearborn – Ford Co-Pilot360™ Technology – a comprehensive collection of available driver-assist features – adds new offerings including Active Drive Assist, allowing for hands-free driving on more than 100,000 miles of divided highways in all 50 states and Canada.
“The stress of long highway drives remains a huge issue for drivers around the world,” said Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief product development and purchasing officer. “By introducing driver-assist technologies like Active Drive Assist, Ford’s version of hands-free driving, we’re allowing our customers to feel more confident whenever they’re behind the wheel.”
Active Drive Assist is the next evolution of Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control with Lane Centering from Ford, adding a first-for-Ford Hands-Free Mode with the potential for more enhancements in the future.1
Hands-Free Mode allows drivers on certain sections of pre-mapped, divided highways to drive with their hands off the steering wheel – if they continue to pay attention to the road ahead – granting them an additional level of comfort during long drives.
An advanced infrared driver-facing camera will track eye gaze and head position to ensure drivers are paying attention to the road while in Hands-Free Mode as well as hands-on Lane Centering Mode, which works on any road with lane lines. Drivers will be notified by visual prompts on their instrument cluster when they need to return their attention to the road or resume control of the vehicle.

Road Edge Detection
“Introducing Active Drive Assist with a driver-facing camera makes perfect sense because the vehicle helps relieve the stress and burden of driving but still leaves you fully in control,” said Thai-Tang. “And if you lose focus on the road ahead, Active Drive Assist will automatically warn and potentially slow the vehicle down until you’re ready to focus back up.”
Active Drive Assist begins rolling out on select 2021 model year Ford vehicles and will be available across the Mustang Mach-E lineup.
For those customers among the first to order a Mustang Mach-E, Active Drive Assist hardware will be available as part of the Ford Co-Pilot360 Active 2.0 Prep Package at time of purchase.
Ford plans to give customers who purchase the prep package the opportunity to purchase Active Drive Assist software and receive the feature at a Ford dealer or via an over-the-air update expected in the third quarter of 2021.2
The Ford Co-Pilot360 Active 2.0 Prep Package also includes Active Park Assist 2.0, the latest iteration of park-assist technologies to give drivers some peace of mind when parking their Mustang Mach-E. With Active Park Assist 2.0, simply holding a button will allow the vehicle to take control of parking in parallel and perpendicular spaces with ease. It also offers Park Out Assist with side-sensing capability so drivers can confidently navigate out of a parking spot when someone’s parked too close.
Confidence-Driving Technology
Mustang Mach-E’s Ford Co-Pilot360 2.0 standard package includes two enhancements to Ford’s Lane-Keeping System: Road Edge Detection and Blind Spot Assist.
Road Edge Detection can increase driving confidence in rural areas by sensing the edges of a lane with visible lines or road with a clear edge, such as grass or dirt. The technology can then alert the driver if the vehicle is starting to drift out of the lane or off the road. Blind Spot Assist identifies vehicles in a blind spot with a light on the side view mirror, and then applies a nudge in the vehicle’s steering system to help provide caution against an unsafe action.
The updated Lane-Keeping System joins Auto High-Beam Headlamps, Blind Spot Information System with Cross-Traffic Alert, Pre-Collision Assist with Automatic Emergency Braking, Post-Collision Braking, Rear View Camera, Reverse Brake Assist and Reverse Sensing System as technologies on the Mustang Mach-E Ford Co-Pilot360 2.0 standard package.
On Mustang Mach-E’s standard Ford Co-Pilot360 Assist 2.0 package is an advancement in Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop and Go, which slows down a vehicle if the traffic ahead has stopped or slowed, bringing the vehicle to a complete stop before resuming as traffic begins to move.
Previously the technology required driver reactivation after a vehicle is stopped for three seconds, the advancement now resumes driving if stopped for up to 30 seconds. Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control also includes Speed Sign Recognition.
Intersection Assist employs the camera and radar sensor technology used by Pre-Collision Assist with Automatic Emergency Braking to detect oncoming traffic while attempting to turn left. If there’s a risk of a potential collision with an oncoming vehicle, the vehicle can alert the driver and apply the brakes.
Standard and available packages vary by nameplate, and those packages will be announced closer to on-sale dates for 2021 model year vehicles.
Extensive testing
Ford has put Active Drive Assist through its paces to create a driving experience that customers can be confident in – one that’s actually hands-free as long as the driver-facing camera can monitor head position and eye gaze instead of relying only on monitoring driver attention through steering wheel grip, as other systems do.
Ford subjected its Active Drive Assist test vehicles to the Mother of All Road Trips, exposing its sensors to snow, rain, bright sun, dark nights, traffic jams and open roads over hundreds of thousands of miles across the U.S., Canada and Europe in an attempt to expose the sensors to a variety of extremely specific scenarios – or gray areas – so the technology is as ready to handle the array of real-world conditions drivers face daily.
“Our team has aggressively tested Active Drive Assist to bring something to our customers’ lives that they can trust,” said Justin Teems, Active Drive Assist feature lead. “We go to far-flung places around the U.S. and Canada – from Florida to California, from Quebec to Texas, Wyoming and Idaho – to try to stimulate those rare-case sensor measurements we might not get anywhere else, capturing data in a number of different ways.”
1 Driver-assist features are supplemental and do not replace the driver’s attention, judgment and need to control the vehicle. It does not replace safe driving. See Owner's Manual for detail and limitations.
2 Active Drive Assist is a hands-free highway driving feature. The Active Drive Assist Prep Kit contains the hardware required for this feature. Software for the feature will be available for purchase at a later date. Separate payment for feature software required to activate full functionality at that time.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

Sponsored

 

[Michel Jeanneau]

hmmm....not sure about this; I am already half-annoyed at the collision assist thing...it gets mad if I go to pass a vehicle without putting on the blinker-it has done that a couple of times when I had to do a quick pass to avoid some blockhead with touchy brakes...the point is: I really don't mind driving, in fact I LIKE IT! I like rowing my own gears...that pleasure is gone; I like taking some windy back road on a warm day just to enjoy the driving experience...maybe I'm just getting old and have to complain about stuff...I dunno

 

[Leftcoast]

I've been waiting for my robot vehicle for years. Bring it on. Droning on an interstate isn't my version of farfegnugen. I'm ready for my sleeper seats.

 

[Sailor]

I am not sure how I feel about all this high tech stuff. There are a lot of people who can't drive now. With all this stuff they will depend on it too much. When the chips are down they will have been depending on their vehicle to save their ass and the will be pooched.

 

[AzScorpion]

hmmm....not sure about this; I am already half-annoyed at the collision assist thing...it gets mad if I go to pass a vehicle without putting on the blinker-it has done that a couple of times when I had to do a quick pass to avoid some blockhead with touchy brakes...the point is: I really don't mind driving, in fact I LIKE IT! I like rowing my own gears...that pleasure is gone; I like taking some windy back road on a warm day just to enjoy the driving experience...maybe I'm just getting old and have to complain about stuff...I dunno

Nope,I feel the same way. While I do love most of the tech stuff in our Rangers there's NO way I want an autonomous vehicle! I don't trust them and like Sailor said some will depend on this way to much. Unfortunately when technology advances we must too. But it doesn't mean I have to like it.

 

[ParkerAzJeff]

Very simple response. I TRUST ME

 

[RANGER_MARC]

Encouraging people to take their hands off the wheel to get drinks etc. is a bad (and dangerous) idea in my opinion. Even on the present Ranger, I use traditional cruise control but not the adaptive one because I want to make these life-and-death decisions myself instead of trusting HAL to make them for me. Anyway, they can put all this stuff in our cars, but we don't have to use them....

 

[AzScorpion]

Encouraging people to take their hands off the wheel to get drinks etc. is a bad (and dangerous) idea in my opinion. Even on the present Ranger, I use traditional cruise control but not the adaptive one because I want to make these life-and-death decisions myself instead of trusting HAL to make them for me. Anyway, they can put all this stuff in our cars, but we don't have to use them....

I agree but the problem is you still have to pay for them. They're usually in the options package with most of the other goodies that we like so you're forced to spend extra money. I wish they would do an a la cart for options but it would be to costly for them at the plant. I never use the ACC and it's in the way for me to add a light bar. I know there are brackets to relocate it but that's just another expense.

I do like the lane assist but as Michel Jeanneau said it sucks if you have to change lanes quickly and the steering wheel is fighting you because you didn't have time to put your blinker on.

 

[landiscarrier]

I am not sure how I feel about all this high tech stuff. There are a lot of people who can't drive now. With all this stuff they will depend on it too much. When the chips are down they will have been depending on their vehicle to save their ass and the will be pooched.

Agree, I’m not a fan of the lane assist and the adaptive cruise control. I’ve turned them off. But every time I turn on cruise control it has to remind me I have it off. ??‍

 

[RedlandRanger]

If you guys haven't used ACC you don't know what you are missing - it is WONDERFUL on any road that has ANY traffic on it. With normal cruise I'm having to constantly adjust my speed - with ACC I don't. It doesn't make me pay any less attention to my driving but it does make cruise infinitely more useful on roads with any traffic at all.

The first few times I used it I had my foot on the brake - just in case - but it worked really well.

Lane assist is something I've not found a good use for - too many roads where it doesn't work well for me.

 

[Zaph]

This statement basically downsells the whole concept - "An advanced infrared driver-facing camera will track eye gaze and head position to ensure drivers are paying attention to the road." People want this so they don't have to pay attention to the road.

The bottom line is that you still have to drive the vehicle. You're forced to pay attention because the designers (and the world, and the lawyers) still can't trust that a computer can drive a car better than a human.

Hands on the wheel or not isn't a big deal. Let me know when I can just get in the passenger seat on days when I feel a little tired and let my car drive me to work. I'll get excited then.

 

[Michel Jeanneau]

What annoyed me about ACC (I had it on a couple of subaru loaners) is that: say you set cruise to 70 and you approach a slower vehicle on your lane, and instead of just remaining at 70 mph and pass said slowpoke, the ACC slows your vehicle to match slowpoke and you have to annoyingly mash the skinny pedal to override ACC

 

[DeathRanger]

Driver assist tech is getting better and is amazing when used properly. You will still have to pay attention while driving. it's not fully automated...yet. While Ford's upcoming system may not be the best one available it's still a step in the right direction. I've personally driven 40+ hours in 3 days with an autopilot system and it was a breeze. you feel way less tired on long drives when the mundane part of staying centered in the lane is done for you. There are still some kinks to work out but a car on autopilot is way a better driver than any of these kids staring at their phone while driving.

 

[rang19ca]

Staring at their phone while driving. There is the problem right there.

 

[RANGER_MARC]

I agree but the problem is you still have to pay for them. They're usually in the options package with most of the other goodies that we like so you're forced to spend extra money. I wish they would do an a la cart for options but it would be to costly for them at the plant. I never use the ACC and it's in the way for me to add a light bar. I know there are brackets to relocate it but that's just another expense.

I do like the lane assist but as Michel Jeanneau said it sucks if you have to change lanes quickly and the steering wheel is fighting you because you didn't have time to put your blinker on.

Sure, as customers, we would love à la carte ordering, so we could just choose what we want and leave off all the crap we don't, but companies generally don't sell vehicles that way, or only to a limited degree (for obviou$ reason$). One of the reasons why I settled on the Ranger is that you can get features like the FX4 and B&O without including a sun/moon roof!

Sponsored