- What if your car could actively prevent its own theft? A newly published Ford patent has ideas to do just that.
- A patent submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) imagines a vehicle that could autonomously relocate based on nearby suspicious activity.
- The system could also choose to park against a wall to block cargo access or make wheel theft more difficult.
It’s usually not a good sign when you park your car and then return to that spot to find it’s not where you left it. An idea in a recently published Ford patent application would turn that into a positive, though, as it would mean the vehicle sensed trouble and autonomously re-parked itself somewhere it deemed safer. The patent also describes ways to park and safeguard specific pieces of vehicle equipment—such as the wheels—and what you’re carrying inside or in a pickup’s bed.
Active Anti-Theft Parking
A Ford patent application submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) explains that a vehicle would detect “suspicious activity” and relocate itself somewhere less sketchy. Examples of these potential threats include a person who keeps peering into the windows or another vehicle repeatedly circling. The system could also decide a new spot is in order if the car finds itself alone in a previously populated lot—our four-wheeled friends get lonely too.
In a less complicated implementation, the vehicle could recommend a parking location and/or orientation to the driver, who would then park manually to, ideally, reduce the likelihood of theft.
Save the Wheels
Alone with fleeing danger, the application describes a variety of ways the vehicle could park itself for self-preservation. Most of these methods are intended to prevent wheel theft, a very real threat to new vehicles. (One of our test cars fell victim when it was minding its own business in a staffer’s suburban carport one moment, unceremoniously left wheelless on a pair of landscaping blocks the next.)
