Ford’s fashionable full-size vehicles, such because the Ford F-150, boast new know-how to make trailering and towing simpler. The U.S. automaker has debuted its new Pro Trailer Hitch Assist, which leverages synthetic intelligence and sensors aboard the F-Series to assist drivers completely place their truck’s hitch ball below a trailer hitch with the push of a button. There’s no extra want for 23-point turns and all of the frustration of misaligning a truck and trailer when coupling the 2.
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The Ford Pro Trailer Hitch Assist depends on information from the truck’s rear digicam, ultrasonic sensors and laptop imaginative and prescient to routinely management the pickup’s velocity, steering and braking, lining up the ball instantly below the trailer coupler. Drivers merely push and maintain a button whereas monitoring the truck’s trajectory on the middle display, however the concept is to remove the trial-and-error (extra like arcane magic) of getting a hitch ball to vanish below a trailer coupler.
Ford engineers add the Pro Trailer Hitch Assist can also be meant to remove the necessity for a spotter when hooking as much as a trailer — though a spotter is all the time a good suggestion, regardless. But on this video, a Ford trailer tow engineer says the tech is there for these instances when a second individual is unavailable:
The new system detects quite a lot of trailers of various weights and sizes, and allegedly works on completely different terrains and below varied climate situations. It sounds particularly helpful for chilly and stormy days when the tune and dance of hooking up a trailer may be irritating.
Pro Trailer Hitch Assist is on the market on the Ford F-150, F-150 Lightning and F-Series Super Duty vehicles, though sure F-150 trims should already be outfitted with the Trailer Tow Package ($1,325), whereas Super Duty vehicles will need to have the Tow Technology Package ($925) to ensure that the brand new Pro Trailer Hitch Assist to use.
This is the most recent machine studying tech Ford designed for its bestselling vehicles, which is supposed to make hitching up — or towing basically — simpler for drivers who would in any other case draw back from pulling a trailer and utilizing their vehicles to their full potential. Ford boasts that it racked up 60 patents throughout growth of Pro Trailer Hitch Assist. Ford says it makes use of an AI algorithm that’ll enhance over time as extra F-150, Lightning, and Super Duty drivers use the characteristic.
Source: jalopnik.com