Hyundai Mobis say they have finished development of a camera monitoring system set to replace side view mirrors on upcoming passenger vehicles.
The Hyundai group affiliate say their new camera system helps improve road safety by providing a field of view twice as wide as conventional door-mounted mirrors. More, it requires almost no protruding areas on the car’s exterior, increasing vehicle design opportunities and helping to reduce noise, air resistance, and fuel consumption. It also increases driver convenience when parking in narrow spaces.
Cameras mounted in place of the mirrors are said to offer 35° rear views, compared with the 17° of conventional door mounted mirrors (though the latter figure depends on whether local regulations require plain flat driver-side mirrors, as in North America, or allow convex and aspherical ones). This also helps to reduce blind spots, with the wide angle images displayed in real time on monitors installed on the instrument panel—another safety benefit, because drivers needn’t move their eyes as far from the normal road gaze to see the side view.
The company say they have “put special effort into verifying the system’s reliability so that it can function normally under severe conditions such as bad weather”, adding the system offers drivers a clearer rear view in bad weather conditions, such as heavy rain and snow.
