Kick your foot under a 2013 Ford Escape, keep a key fob in your pocket, and the vehicle will open its rear liftgate automatically. That might not seem like a particularly hairy technical challenge, until you consider that the vehicle has to discern the difference between your foot and, say, a cat or a basketball. What's more, it has to understand your intentions.
"The tricky part is verifying intent," William McRoy, product development engineer for Ford Motor Co., told us. "You might be walking up to your vehicle but not want the liftgate to open. This has to be able to tell the difference."
The 2013 Ford Escape will use capacitive technology to operate a hands-free power liftgate. (Source: Ford Motor Co.)
To accomplish that, Ford's hands-free power liftgate employs capacitive sensing. Two sensors (one at the top and another at the bottom of the car's bumper fascia) "look" for the driver's foot and shin. When a microcontroller-based "hands-free module" in the vehicle verifies their presence, it communicates with a body control module that searches for the key fob in the driver's pocket. If the foot, shin, and fob are all detected, the system sends a signal to a liftgate module, which operates the door switch.
"The fob can be in a customer's purse or in a pocket," McRoy said. "The idea is you don't have to put down your groceries before you open the door."
Ford said the capacitive sensors endow the system with the ability to discriminate between a cat, a basketball, a foot, or a shin on the basis of electrical capacitance. Algorithms in the hands-free module then put the information together in a way that suggests intent.
I must say, TJ, you came up with a creative downside to the automatic trunk opener. I think this feature offers a very tiny plus to a vehicle. But it's a plus nonetheless.
I must say I like your "keep it simple" philosophy, VadimR, but we're going to lose that battle. Every time I attend an auto show, there's a handful of new sensor-based systems that I'd never seen before.
If you want the feature, why not put a kick plate on the back of the bumper or a switch next to the tow hitch? In both cases there is no need to verifying intent because you must be intentional to press the switch.
I personally think that we have way too many sensors and gadgets in cars. Lets keep it simple! The more complicated we make them, the more expensive cars become, the more likely they are to fail, and the more expensive they are to fix when they do fail.
This is a great use of sensing techology to make something hands free and more user friendly. I would like to know how long it is necessary to keep your foot under the bumper to have the tailgate completely rise. Hopefully, you would be able to trigger the movement then be able to back up to stay out of the way of the lifting hatch.
Ever been stopped just as you were going to load your car? A neighbor calls your name, and you turn to see why, or your spouse calls from the front door to add to your shopping list? I can see this door giving you a whack from accidental detection, the "intent" described in the article.
Still, I like the idea very much; the cost added to the power package will be my deciding factor.
Mr. Weaver's comment about an onboard network is bang-on as well, though I don't think it will go to fiber optic. Bussed sensors (Devicenet or the like) already exist; getting them down in cost should work for mass auto production.
Yes, this is a very clever idea. It will be interesting to see if it is useful enough to get picked up by the industry at large. Not sure this rises to the level of intermittent windshield wipers, but who knows?
I know DesignNews continues to cover automobile data networks, but it is innovations like this liftgate sensor that makes them all the more imperative. As automotive engineers continue to instrument each sub-system on the platform, a common, multiplexed information network will be imperative as we continue. Yards of low-gauge automotive signal and power wire will only serve to increase cost and complexity. Can an on-board, distributed fiber-optic network be far behind?
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