Fuji Heavy develops anti-collision technology

TOKYO — Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, the maker of the Subaru cars, said Friday it has developed lower-priced anti-collision technologies using a high-performance stereo camera system.

The system, to be mounted on a rear-view mirror, recognizes distances to objects ahead in a similar way to a pair of eyes. Distances are measured speedily by a newly developed three-dimensional image-processing engine.

If there is an imminent danger of collision, an electronic alarm is set off and the brake system is activated automatically.

Fuji's technologies are different from many existing anticollision technologies, which use radar systems. Radar systems are poor at detecting pedestrians and bicycles, as the radio waves reflected by such objects tend to be weak.

The stereo camera system is better at detecting such objects and its costs are lower than those of radar systems, which use expensive sensors.

Fuji's technologies allow a vehicle to maintain preset levels of intervehicle distance and speed. If a driver starts the car by mistake, its brakes are applied automatically if there is any object close ahead.

Fuji Heavy will offer the stereo camera and related systems in Japan as an option for its Legacy passenger cars from 2008.

JapanToday.