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How It Works
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Reverse
Sonar: Reverse sonar is offered as an option on several luxury vehicles. Ford is the only major car maker to offer reverse sonar as an option on its Windstar minivans and several Sport Utility Vehicles. Marketplace asked Ford of Canada's Dean Stonely to explain how the system works. The device is wired into the vehicle’s back-up light circuit and is automatically powered and activated only when the vehicle is shifted into reverse. "There are four sensors on the rear bumper," Stonely told
Marketplace. "They send out ultrasonic waves that will detect objects
behind the vehicle."
"They feed that information into a control module that's
mounted in the sides of the vehicles. The module relays that information
to a speaker and the speaker will produce a series of beeps depending
on how close the object is behind the vehicle."
The closer the object, the more frequent the beeps. There are three stages of beeps to most systems. By the time an object is about 20 centimetres from the rear bumper, the beeping will be constant. We've come across three different reverse sonar systems in the preparation of this story:
During our test, the beeping indicated Jacquie Perrin was 20 centimetres away from hitting an object. When she got out of the van and walked around to the back, she could see that the beeps were right: a tricycle sat 20 centimetres behind the van.
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