Gentex Corporation, a western Michigan supplier of automotive rearview mirrors, has developed a system that relieves drivers of the nuisance of manually turning on and off vehicles' high beams, according to company officials. The new system, which Gentex unveiled at the Society of Automotive Engineers show in Detroit March 5, uses a "camera-on-a-chip" imaging sensor that is capable of detecting the headlights of oncoming vehicles or the tail lamps of preceding vehicles while distinguishing them from other light sources, such as neon signs and reflective traffic signs. It can automatically turn on the driver's high beams when no traffic is present in front of his vehicle and automatically return them to low beams when it detects headlamps or tail lights on the road ahead, according to a March 5 story by Wall Street Journal reporter Norihiko Shirouzu. In most cases, the new system will be mounted on the back of the rearview mirror facing ahead of the vehicle, according to Fred Bauer, chairman of Gentex. Gentex and Ford Motor Company said Ford has agreed to use the system for its Lincoln-brand vehicles beginning with 2004-model-year vehicles. According to Bauer, other companies are also considering using Gentex's new high-beam control technology. He declined to give a projection of revenue from the new product. Bauer said Gentex worked on different approaches to perfect the SmartBeam system for more than 10 years. Similar products in the past didn't work well because they abruptly changed the headlight beams and had trouble distinguishing the headlights of oncoming cars and the tail lamps of preceding vehicles from other non-vehicle light sources, according to Bauer. Gentex has engineered SmartBeam to slowly fade the high beams on and off to make that transition from low to high beams and vice versa less distracting and more aesthetically pleasing, Bauer said.