Ford engineers have designed a sliding heart console that might be utilized by each passengers and any pets they could have on board.
Cupholders are a typical function in heart consoles, however this model additionally incorporates a holder for a pet’s water bowl. And it could be capable to slide fore and aft to place drinks nearer to particular seats, based on a Ford patent software initially filed in 2021 with the US Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) and solely revealed on March 19.
A monitoring system would hold observe of which seats are occupied, and the place pets are within the automobile. A controller would then reposition the console as wanted.
Pets may additionally put on radio-emitting gadgets to permit the system to maintain observe of them as they roam concerning the cabin, Ford suggests. The built-in pet bowl would additionally embrace a capacitive sensor to find out the quantity of liquid within the bowl, maybe to maintain the controller from shifting the console too abruptly and spilling it.
Ford sliding heart console patent picture
This is only one of a number of current Ford patent filings for reconfigurable inside fittings.
One other just lately revealed patent software describes heart consoles with deployable tables, whereas one other discusses reconfigurable seating that enables seats to be ahead or backward dealing with with out bodily flipping them round.
If it reaches manufacturing, this pet-friendly heart console may be utilized in mixture with the built-in loading ramp Ford has additionally tried to patent. In that just lately surfaced patent software, Ford discusses utilizing a deployable ramp not just for loading and unloading cargo, however for making it simpler for pets to get into the again of an SUV.