Continental Working on Pedestrian-Detecting Stereo Camera

Continental announced it is developing a stereo camera system that will help cut down the number of seriously injured people hit by cars, as according to the company, nearly half of all accidents that cause injury or death involve pedestrians in Germany.

"What is expected of our accident prevention and avoidance systems is that, instead of prioritizing obstacles, they should be able to help in every hazardous situation. This means that we must look for new ways of monitoring a vehicle's surroundings," said Andreas Brand, Head of Passive Safety & ADAS Business Unit at Continental's Chassis & Safety Division.

The advanced system makes use of high-resolution cameras working in stereo to detect pedestrians the driver might otherwise have miss. If the device notices someone stepping in front of the car, it will automatically perform an emergency stop. The advantage with the ContiGuard safety system is that it can tell how far away the person is and how tall, while a single camera can see a pedestrian, but it won’t determine any sort of distance.

If the pedestrian is too close and emergency braking won’t work, then the system will look within its field of vision for a place where evasive action can be taken.

"In the future, the stereo camera will even be able to detect children, who are small pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchair users crossing the road. We are, in fact, realizing a comprehensive obstacle recognition system, the like of which has never before been possible," said Wilfried Mehr, Head of Business Development for advanced driver assistance systems.