Fujitsu today unveiled the world’s first video technology for vehicles that provides a 360° view of a driver’s surroundings. The system, which consists of four video cameras mounted around a vehicle, is supposedly able to enhance driving safety while parking, merging in lanes, seeing around corners etc. It achieves real-time operation with 30ms video processing time.

Fujitsu says conventional vehicle-mounted camera systems are helpful in reducing the risk of accidents but fail to adequately reduce the need for visual checks by the driver. The company claims their “3-D virtual projection/point of view conversion technology”, a combination of producing a 3D video and giving the user the freedom to decide from which perspective he or she wants to view the vehicle’s surroundings (“omni-view”), makes it possible to obtain an overview from a single image.

The technology will be demonstrated at the “World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems” in New York, which ends November 20th.