In a recent filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Mercedes-Benz describes an intelligent vehicle-unlocking system that can determine the position and trajectory of a person approaching a car and unlock the correct door to grant access to the vehicle.
Enhancing Convenience and Safety
Mercedes says that the system makes use of multiple exterior sensors – which may include equipment such as parking sensors and external cameras – to divide the area around the vehicle into various zones like the slices of a pizza. Each sensor is allocated a zone, but they don’t operate independently; instead all sensor data is combined to form an intelligent, integrated system that can detect and follow the path of a person approaching the vehicle. The vehicle then unlocks the appropriate door for the person to gain access to the vehicle.
The patent applies to proximity unlocking systems, where a vehicle and key communicate with each other as the authorized person approaches the vehicle. Upon identification of the person, the vehicle doesn’t just unlock all doors or only the driver’s door by default. The system is unique in using the sensor array to decide which way the person is headed, unlocking only the appropriate door and keeping all the other doors locked to enhance safety and security.
Our Take
Mercedes-Benz’s refinement of existing keyless entry seems to add a layer of control, convenience, and security that wasn’t present before, but its operation would have to be carefully tuned to be a help and not a hindrance. For example, no mention is made of how the system is to know that several authorized people are approaching the vehicle – such as when picking up children from school – and unlocking multiple or all the doors.
In addition, it’s not mentioned if the system is intelligent enough to include the trunk lid in the available unlocking options. We also don’t know how far the integration goes, and whether the system will be able to control functions such as automatically opening a power liftgate without having to use a kick sensor. If these features can be intelligently integrated, it could very well be the next step in user-friendly vehicle access.
