Night vision in cars - gimmick or useful safety feature?

BrianD3

Night vision is slowly making its way into cars. As someone who drives probably 10,000 miles a year on country roads in the dark I am interested in it. I think it would be useful for picking out heat emitting hazards such as pedestrians and animals when meeting oncoming vehicles, some of which will have badly adjusted headlights

The Mercedes S class and BMW 7 series were some of the first to get night vision, now it's filtering down to less expensive cars like the new 5 series and new Audi A6. The BMW system displays on the navigation screen whereas the Audi one seems to use a display in the instrument binnacle between speedometer and rev counter. Audi system sounds better, then again maybe the display is tiny.

Downsides, it's an expensive option and I'd have worries about reliability, especially if Audi continues to offer only a 2 year warranty on its cars, I believe BMW is now giving 3 years. The camera itself is behind the front grille so may have a hard life from weather, road debris etc.

Owen

The camera itself is behind a thick glass lens to protect it on the BMWs. I've used BMW's system, and it's actually brilliant. It's even better when you're driving in fog with little or no visibility.

The only downside to the BMW system is where the screen is - the iDrive means the screen is in the middle of the dash, so you're constantly looking ahead, scanning left to see the screen. On the Merc it's right in front of you IIRC. In a couple more years when HUD's are more developed, hopefully we'll see this sort of tech by looking right out the windscreen as normal.

BrianD3

PaintDoctor wrote: »

The camera itself is behind a thick glass lens to protect it on the BMWs. I've used BMW's system, and it's actually brilliant. It's even better when you're driving in fog with little or no visibility.

The only downside to the BMW system is where the screen is - the iDrive means the screen is in the middle of the dash, so you're constantly looking ahead, scanning left to see the screen. On the Merc it's right in front of you IIRC. In a couple more years when HUD's are more developed, hopefully we'll see this sort of tech by looking right out the windscreen as normal.

The Audi one is directly* in front of you too, well it is in the A8 and I think A7 and A6 too. I agree with your comment about having to scan left to see the screen in the BMW, I'd much prefer to have it directly ahead.

*between the speedo and rev counter

Stevie Dakota

I'm sure they will standard on a Micra in 10 years, but for now why can't manufacturers just make decent headlights? I'm amazed at how poor some are on brand new cars, the main beams on my old 1988 Pug 205 where better than on a new Honda I drove recently.

robtri

used one in a s class merc before, nice job at night time, right in front of you,

Owen

You're not just only using night vision though, you're using it and normal vision. It's a complimentary system for your eyes, not a replacement. I'd no depth perception issues anyway. I could definitely see how using army style night vision goggles could be a bit weird alright, kinda like the Japanese Binocular Soccer video on youtube :pac:

Owen

If you do that, you're guaranteed to crash. The system is kinda odd in that you feel you should be looking at it, but you don't need to. It's B&W and in your peripheral vision, so you end up looking out the windscreen, and if a heat object is in the distance, a big white spot shows up on the screen which is a huge contrast - your peripheral vision catches this change and you subconsciously have a peek, then go back looking at the road.

R.O.R

I used the Night Vision system in a 5 series, between my office and Dublin Aiport. For that journey, in rush hour traffic, on lit, urban roads, it was a pointless toy. Only thing it was picking up was exhaust's from other cars.

On back roads with no traffic I think it would be a big help, but you'd have to weigh up the cost against how often it would get used - and that all depends on your driving.

BrianD3

Here's the A6 dash. I'm pretty sure the night vision display is in the instrument binnacle, not on the big screen over the centre vent



5 series


S Class. Wikipedia tells me that this is active night vision rather than the passive systems in the BMW and Audi. It says passive has longer range and less subject to interference but is much less clear on the screen.

BrianD3

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Active would in theory have a longer range as its not relying on the ambient light levels.

I think its the opposite, the active systems rely on "illuminating" objects using special headlights while the passive systems just see heat from objects.

Maybe an analogy would be seeing the tail lights of the car in front in darkness compared to trying to illuminate a unlit car with your own headlights?

Edit: it seems that handheld "passive" night vision cameras and binoculars work on a different principle to passive night vision in a car. The handheld devices use amplified ambient light, the car system would more correctly be called a thermal imaging camera.

BrianD3

LIGHTNING wrote: »

unless you are talking about IR camera systems

Yes, that's what they are. This is the BMW and presumably Audi system and is also available to retro fit to any car.
http://www.flir.com/cvs/americas/en/transportation/products/pathfindir/

RedorDead

You are right Brian. Audi system is in the DIS (driver information system) display but also comes up on the heads up display.

See picture below.

Audi system is also the only one with a pedestrian warning alarm.

[IMG][/img]

dcmraad

Its a great idea for our back roads. I have used the S class system in FOG and it is amazing.

stephendevlin

Watched a video on it a few years back.. looks the dogs bollox and seems to be great for low ambient areas. cameras are expensive thought and also can be retro fitted in any car.

Owen

That retrofit kit is savage, that would work fine with the TV in my 75!

mickdw

PaintDoctor wrote: »

That retrofit kit is savage, that would work fine with the TV in my 75!

Id doubt there is any chance that would connect to the screen in my A5. How much is it? Id seriously consider getting that

slimjimmc

Jaysus, I vaguely remember seeing a prototype of this on Tomorrow's World (I think), back in days when there was still lead in your petrol.:D. Great to see it in production.

mickdw

I was searching the net to see if this system can be made work with my in dash screen. Seems there is a device called qdis 1224 which allows connection to the basic system in my car. 699 australian dollars though. It does allow other inputs aswell so worth thinking about. Cant see a price for this FLIR system.

BrianD3

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Thats a FLIR system which is a forward looking Infared system which uses IR radiaton (Heat) as its form of detection. However the other type of nightvision are optical sensors that use the photoelectric effect to convert photons to electrical signals (they are amplified before the output is sent to the user).

Two completely different systems that produce two different systems. IR cameras are not much use if your trying to navigate in the dark as they have no depth of field and if you are in a enviroment that has a uniform temp you wont see a thing.

I think you are being overly skeptical or maybe expecting too much from it. It's not for navigating in the dark, it's an early warning of heat emitting objects ahead. If you think about it, many hazards emit heat.
Pedestrians
Cyclists
Livestock/animals
Vehicles that are running or recently stopped/crashed.

It'd be just as useful on dark motorways as on country roads, maybe more so. Dark motorway, enough traffic around for you to need to use dipped lights but not enough for the road to be well illuminated. At 120 km/h, you can't rely on dipped headlights/your eyes to see nonilluminated, non reflective objects that are far enough away for you to stop before hitting them.

Whereas if the FLIR system has a 300 metre range as claimed, you could potentially get 9 secs of early warning @ 120 km/h before reaching a hazard. I bet in reality you wouldn't get 9 secs but judging by the videos, it's still an early warning.

Zith

The basic FLIR one costs around $2500, that doesn't include the mount or cabling. If you go through that FLIR site into the dsitributors you can find their price eventually.

mickdw

Zith wrote: »

The basic FLIR one costs around $2500, that doesn't include the mount or cabling. If you go through that FLIR site into the dsitributors you can find their price eventually.

Thats too expensive to be honest.

opinion guy

Wow.

The future's cool!

seamus

Nice.

How long before windscreens start turning into a HUD, and you'll have integrated night vision which only displays objects (like peds and animals) which you can't see through normal sight, but it displays them on the windscreen...

seamus

LIGHTNING wrote: »

What you could do is a helmet display like the have in modern fighter planes. Have a couple of cameras on the cars and then have mini displays on the display so you can have full unimpared 360 vision.

Or even better, you overlay the pillars with flexible display material and use that to project the image onto the pillar and eliminate the pillar blindspot. Couple this with a "panoramic" all-glass roof and it'll feel like you're driving entirely open-topped.

I don't think the concept of embedding most of your information in the windscreen is all that far off tbh, though I doubt they'll be quick fixes for autoglass...

mickdw

LIGHTNING wrote: »

In that case you could have the passengers facing the opposite way so that you get better protection in a crash. Have a digital steering wheel that could be easily moved from the left handside to right of the car to make it easy to drive on the other side of the road.

Off topic but related to the above post. From a safety point of view, does anyone think there is a market for a family sized car with seating only for the driver, positioned in the centre of the car and towards the rear. This could be made extremely safe by allowing large crumple zones & other deceleration reducing devices build into the drivers seat rails etc and much better side protection. It could be a travelling rep special. one seat only.

BrianD3

mickdw wrote: »

Off topic but related to the above post. From a safety point of view, does anyone think there is a market for a family sized car with seating only for the driver, positioned in the centre of the car and towards the rear. This could be made extremely safe by allowing large crumple zones & other deceleration reducing devices build into the drivers seat rails etc and much better side protection. It could be a travelling rep special. one seat only.

It's an interesting idea but i wouldn't think there would be any market. While many people are interested in safety, they're not THAT interested. And of those who are interested, a good percentage would be more worried about their children's safety in the car than their own - so a one seater safety special isn't going to work for them.

However I do think that with electric vehicles coming on stream some of what you propose may happen anyway. Due to it becoming easier to build a safe car around electric motors and batteries than around awkward items like an engine block, gearbox, fuel tank, propshaft etc.

mickdw

Yes I believe when we get cars with no mechanical links to steering etc, it will be very easy to offer different seating positions etc.