Pothole Detection System Seeks to Plug Safety Gaps

Looking for the road less traveled, or at least less bumpy for your vehicles

Ford is helping limit the impact of damaged roads for drivers of the all-new Focus by introducing innovative pothole detection technology. The system senses when a wheel is falling into a pothole and adjusts the suspension so that the wheel doesn’t fall as far into it.

“Our engineers are always searching for the roughest roads to really test our suspension to the limit, but more and more we’re noticing that the rough roads are finding us,” said Guy Mathot, vehicle dynamics supervisor. “Potholes are a problem that isn’t going away anytime soon, but with our advanced suspension technology for all-new Focus, we’ve been able to reduce their impact.”

The pothole detection system is a feature of the car’s optional Continuously Controlled Damping technology, which every 2 milliseconds monitors suspension, body, steering and braking inputs, and adjusts the vehicle’s suspension responses for the smoothest ride quality.

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