Have you ever been in a situation where you were busy transporting loads of items in your SUV or have a boat load of balloons to ferry around? I have and whenever that happened, I could never see whats behind the car as the rear view mirror is always blocked by the balloons! Nissan has a solution for that and plans to implement it in one of their SUVs in the US.
Named as I-RVM (Intelligent Rear View Mirror), Nissan built an LCD monitor within where the traditional rearview mirror is located. Flip a switch underneath and an LCD screen displays live feed of a camera located behind the car.
Nissan says that the 2018 Nissan Armada will be the first one to have the technology.
“Not since a magic mirror of children’s fables has a mirror seemed to have such special powers as the new I-RVM,” said Michael Bunce, vice president, Product Planning, Nissan North America, Inc. “It provides a clear, expanded field of view under a wide range of conditions – giving the driver the best possible view of the rear flanks no matter how tall the passengers in the back seat or how many balloons you have to take to that party.”
Nissan’s new I-RVM utilizes a high-performance, narrow-angle camera, and a specially shaped LCD monitor, with a unique aspect ratio of approximately 4:1, versus conventional monitors’ 4:3 or 16:9. Matching a standard wide-angle camera lens to this monitor could not be done since the images from the camera when adjusted to the special monitor size, produced a low-resolution image with insufficient picture quality. To overcome this challenge, a narrow-angle camera was developed so that picture quality would not be sacrificed when formatted for the specially designed monitor.
The camera projects an image onto the monitor for a clear view, as well as a more comfortable driving experience.
The high-quality camera and image processing system implemented in the LCD monitor consistently results in a clear image with minimal glare, even during sunrise or sunset conditions or when the vehicle is being followed by a vehicle with strong headlights.
[Source: Nissan]
