US 6,636,258 · Granted 2003-10-21
Ford's 360-Degree Camera: The Patent That Gave Cars Eyes All Around
Imagine a camera on top of your car that can see everything around it at once — like having eyes in the back of your head. Ford's patent combines a special cone-shaped mirror with a camera to create a complete bird's-eye view of the car's surroundings, and the car's computer figures out exactly where nearby objects are and how far away.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a vehicle monitoring system that uses a single camera paired with a conical reflector mounted on the vehicle to capture a full 360-degree view around the car. What's protected here is the specific combination of the reflector geometry, the camera placement, and the controller's ability to calculate the distance and angle to detected objects based on lane positioning and reference angles. Anyone manufacturing or selling a competing 360-degree camera system using this same reflector-and-camera approach would be infringing on this patent.
Why it matters
This patent was filed in 2001 and granted in 2003, right when automotive safety technology was beginning to shift toward camera-based monitoring. A single 360-degree camera system is far cheaper and simpler than mounting four separate cameras around a vehicle, which makes it commercially valuable for mass-market vehicles. The patent's approach — using an optical mirror to multiply what one camera can see — became foundational technology for surround-view systems that eventually became standard on luxury and mid-range vehicles over the next two decades.
Real-world use
Modern Ford vehicles with a 360-degree camera display let you see an overhead view of your car and nearby obstacles on the dashboard screen when you're parking or navigating tight spaces — that's this patent's technology at work.
Original USPTO abstract
A vehicle monitoring system including a camera mounted on top of the vehicle reflector in operative relation to the camera. The camera and the conical reflector provide a 360° field of view image around the vehicle. A controller is also included is adapted to detect objects within the field of view image, and determine a reference angle between the vehicle and a detected object. The controller also generates a distance value between the vehicle and the detected object as a function of a lane (w) and a reference angle (q). In one embodiment, the system includes an overhead-view display system including a reference vehicle indicator representative vehicle within the environment and an indicator element adapted to display the detected object with respect to the vehicle indicator as a function of the distance value.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 6,636,258
- Filing date
- 2001-10-19
- Grant date
- 2003-10-21
- Assignee
- Ford Global Technologies, Llc
- Inventor(s)
- STRUMOLO GARY STEVEN
- CPC class
- B60R1/27
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