Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a part failure detection system that may be used in future Ford vehicles, Ford Authority has learned.
The patent was filed on October 6th, 2020, published on January 7th, 2025, and assigned serial number 12190653.
The Ford Authority Take
Ford has filed patents for all kinds of systems designed to identify potential damage to a vehicle, as well as wear items that need to be replaced and other related developments. That list includes ideas for a suspension damage detection system, a vehicle defect detection system, a system designed to provide assistance when a vehicle is disabled, and a display flicker detection system, to name just a few. Now, this newly published patent keeps that trend going with a new idea, this time, for a part failure detection system that may be used in future Ford vehicles, too.
As Ford points out in this patent filing, vehicles continue to get more and more complex over time, and the majority of folks that buy and own them aren’t exactly mechanically inclined or knowledgeable when it comes to those things. Throw in a future in which Ford believes autonomous vehicles will be quite common, and there is certainly a need for vehicles to self-diagnose not only maintenance items like changing oil, other fluids, and filters, but also, having the ability to detect when more serious repairs or even something as simple as changing tires is needed, too.
That’s precisely what this system aims to do – detect any sort of anomalies with a vehicle by using a number of sensors located throughout it. It would compare a number of things against a set standard to determine when there’s a potential need for maintenance or repair, and then notify the appropriate party, which could in turn perform that maintenance item or repair. It’s a relatively simple idea, but one that Ford has clearly been exploring in depth lately, so we certainly could one day see it or something like it in a real-world application.
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