Future Jaguars to Eliminate Blindspots?
Consistent with its history as an innovating car company, Jaguar is experimenting with a way to eliminate forward blindspots. If your vehicle is like most vehicles, it has a column running up each side of the windshield, called “A-pillars.” Although they are relatively thin, they are indeed wide enough to block a driver’s vision, especially of something as small as a pedestrian.
To help prevent vehicle-pedestrian collisions, Jaguar is working on a system that uses cameras to effectively make the A-pillars “invisible” to drivers, so they can see what would normally be hidden behind this vehicle structure. Basically, the systems uses cameras to “see” into that otherwise-blocked space, and then those live images are projected onto the inside of the A-pillars.
Called 360 Virtual Urban Windscreen (in Britain, “windscreen” = “windshield”), it will also be used to allow drivers to see “through” their rearward door panels, allowing direct vision into the space over drivers’ shoulders. To further enhance safety, Jaguar might even add a visual “halo” around nearby pedestrians, to make them even more visible to drivers.