Ford harnesses fighter jet technology for its cars India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The Ford Motor Company has reportedly achieved a major success in harnessing fighter jet technology for its cars. The company is said to have harnessed radar technology from the F22 fighter jet as part of its bid to make its new Taurus "America's smartest full-sized sedan". Radar devices being used by the company can sound an alarm and flash red lights when a driver gets too close to another car, and, thereby, help avoid crashes. Ford is using this hi-tech gadget to revive what was once the company's top seller. "This is game changing for safety," the BBC quoted Ford's safety head Steve Kozak as saying. "The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the US put out a report last year saying if every vehicle in the US were equipped with this forward collision warning system, we'd save about 7,000 lives a year," he added. Competition from Japanese carmakers and slumping sales caused the Taurus to be discontinued after more than 20 years, but it has has been re-invented as part of a mission to redefine the company. Radar located on the rear bumper of the Taurus can help prevent rear-end crashes, and warn drivers when they drift out of their lanes or when cars are in their blind spots. According to Ford, the F22 radar technology they built upon was all open source. "F22 fighter jets use this advanced radar that can read down the road and identify everything from trees to people. We then added our own Ford algorithms to determine whether or not objects are a 'vehicle target'. Then it monitors the vehicle target and always knows your position relative to those vehicle targets," said Pete Reyes, Ford's chief engineer for the 2010 Taurus. Ford has revealed that technological innovations featuring in its vehicle include a voice-activated navigation system, multi-contour seats that massage the driver to prevent tiredness, a surround-sound system, and a technology called MyKey that can limit top sppeds to 80mph so as to control children's driving behaviour. When the car is started with MyKey, chimes can be set to sound as the car goes above 45mph. Just in case a driver forgets to put on the seat belt, another chime rings. The sound system will not start until the driver and passenger have buckled up. "The Taurus 2010 is a statement about where Ford is going," said Reyes.