Nissan's Around View Monitor System Makes Scuffs and Scrapes a Thing of the Past

Parking is the bane of most peoples' driving existence. It is the complete

opposite of cruising down a highway or negotiating a set of hairpin turns. It is one thing to get from A to B, but it's a completely different thing to have to maneuver your two-ton automobile, three-ton SUV or four-ton heavy-duty pickup truck into a parking stall. Add to that bigger blind spots, and big, shiny wheels wrapped in un-protective low-profile tires and parking can become a real nightmare. We're not even factoring in traffic!

Quite a number of solutions have popped up over the years to help the troubled park their cars. Audible, sonar parking sensors have made things quite a bit easier, and are starting to appear on most cars. We here happen to adore them. Likewise, the rear-mounted camera has helped out quite a bit for backing up. It's especially useful in SUVs, allowing the driver to see what's directly behind and below their rear bumper. And let's not forget the self-parking Lexus LS 460, which takes matters out of the driver's hands if

they can get around the limited usefulness of the system.

Nissan is advancing things once more, but in a slightly different way. Drivers of cars that feature the brand new Around View Monitor still have to do the work of twirling the steering wheel, but the premise behind their system is offering several extra sets of eyes. Its parking camera system offers 360-degrees of vision around the car plus several different vantage points to help the driver out. The system also uses information about inputs from the steering wheel, and can plot the course of the vehicle directly onto the screen. Like many parking cameras, if the car approaches a fixed object, the system will use clearly marked and colored symbols to warn the driver.

The key to the system doesn't have as much to do with the cameras (there are four wide angle units) as it does with the computer that processes the information. The cameras can display the view in front of the car, and the view behind the car as conventional parking assist cameras can, but it also depicts a bird's eye view of the front of the vehicle and behind the vehicle. It can also render a graphic that shows the overhead view of the car relative to others around it. We can see this system being very helpful in keeping the bumpers pristine and clean on your brand new Armada or QX56.

The system isn't quite ready for use here in North America, but it will be soon. Nissan will debut this technology in its home market this year on the new Elgrand minivan. We'll get to see it first on the new Infiniti EX35 sport crossover vehicle, on later production models.