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Ford has released information on a new technology that uses stored satellite navigation routes to activate safety measures appropriate to the location.

Named PReVENT, the research project is intended to improve road safety through technical advance and is funded partially by the EU, as well as the 54 other businesses involved in the project (Ford included).

By retaining details of regular routes in the car's inbuilt sat-nav, the system can control safety features such as lane-keeping and adaptive headlights to the particular route.

The vehicle recognises potential hazards on the route and prepares the relevant safety feature. So if you travel home on the same road every day, the onboard computer would anticipate the corner angles and set the headlight direction accordingly.

Equally, the digital data from the sat-nav could be used to improve the reliability of path prediction systems, which currently run off cameras.

The PReVENT project has been going on for four years, and is planned to end in 2008. With £19m of the European Union's money involved, expect to see the new technology implemented very soon.

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