Zac Quinn 
Digging through patents and trademarks is always fun. You never know what you’ll find, and some of the ideas lurking in the background are pretty cool. For example, Ford has recently filed a patent for a Smart Truck Bed Cargo System with some beneficial properties to make truck beds more advanced and helpful to owners.
Ford Smart Cargo Management System: Details
As discovered by CarBuzz, the patent filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) indicate Ford is working on the management system for trucks like the new Maverick and the coveted Ford F-150. This feature could be a massive game-changer for truck bed designs. The filing indicates that sensors will determine the distance an item extends beyond the vehicle’s sheet metal. That data will allow the system to deduce whether you violate local or federal regulations. Perfect for eliminating tickets for hanging 2x4s off your bed on the way to your destination after leaving Home Depot.
Based on the diagrams, the system can monitor your stuff constantly. This means if any material shifts or decides to take a tumble, you’d be notified of its absence. Additionally, if the vehicle becomes non-compliant in some regard, you’d also be notified. So, no more constantly checking your mirror to ensure your pricey materials are still in place.
This system does have some other practical applications as well. As it can be as precise or imprecise as you’d like, the tech could be helpful for parking in tight spaces or crowded job sights as it’s possible to augment the parking sensors according to the vehicle’s added length with loaded materials. It would also be interesting to see if this system would be capable of monitoring the bed to prevent theft. It would be nice for people to be able to leave cargo within the truck bed where an alarm would go off if someone reaches into the bed while the truck is locked. Of course, people use their cargo space for things such as coolers or luggage more than oversized objects. But we’ll have to see what all Ford will have the system keep track of if they ever expand the idea beyond a patent.
