09:30 14-06-2026
BYD underbody patent: the car will check the space beneath itself before driving off
China's patent office has published a BYD filing for an underbody monitoring method based on image comparison. The system spots cats, dogs or people hiding under a parked vehicle.
BYD keeps expanding its lineup of safety systems built around the vehicle. On June 12, China's National Intellectual Property Administration published a company patent for a method of detecting living objects under the car.
The idea is based on image comparison. When the vehicle is powered down, the system captures the current picture of the space beneath the floor and stores it as a baseline. It then compares that picture with a real-time image, locates the regions where they differ, and uses those regions to decide whether a living object could be under the car. This approach should make the check faster and more accurate.
Instead of constantly analysing the entire area beneath the car, the system focuses on the regions that have changed. If a cat, dog, child or another person has crept under the vehicle after parking, the algorithm will notice the difference and assess the state of the object. For the driver, the point of such a technology is clear without any complicated terms: before pulling away, the car can warn about a risk in a spot the driver normally doesn't look at.
This is especially relevant in courtyards, car parks, residential driveways and during the cold season, when animals hide under cars seeking warmth. It is not BYD's first filing in the field of living-object detection — the company has previously registered developments related to spotting passengers left in the cabin and living objects beneath the vehicle.
On the same day, another BYD patent was disclosed — a system for detecting a passenger left in the cabin based on radar data, frequency-domain features and angle-of-arrival analysis. For now it is just a patent, not a confirmed production feature. Still, the direction makes it clear where automotive safety is heading: the car has to keep an eye not only on the road ahead but also on what the driver physically cannot see before start-up.
Earlier, 32CARS.RU reported that BYD is expanding its global factory network with a new site in Pakistan.