Pub. 3 Issue 4

20 www.glancda.org AN AUTOMATED AUTOMOTIVE BY RANDALL MAH D o you ever get nostalgic for childhood family road trips? Maybe they started like this: Dad would pack the family into the Ford Crown Victoria station wagon and load it with everything you’d need for a weeks-long journey, includ- ing a large case of cassette tapes. Being a safe and cautious driver, he wouldn’t distract himself by looking through the cassettes in traffic. He would wait to insert one only when the family was well out of the city and on the highway. Finally, he’d relax to Ol’ Blue Eyes and turn on the cruise control. For decades, t hat ’s how dad and everybody else might have defined “autonomous vehicles,” if they were familiar with the concept. While self- driving cars are still years away, in 2016, the automotive and other industries are redefining our relationship with vehicles in ways that are making a connected and autonomous car future a reality – and will make road trips and commutes unrecognizable. In the coming years, they will change how we interact with our vehicles, enable vehicles to communicate with electronic items outside the car as well as government, and help to automate everything from parking to registering your car. For many of these innovative companies, this future is already here. If BMW has its way, before you step out your front door for your road adventure of a lifet ime, you’l l wal k past its “connected mirror,” showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January in Las Vegas. Appearing much like a mirror you might place in your entryway – except incredibly intelligent – BMW’s concept product displays your daily schedule, the charging status of your electric vehicle and the most efficient route to your destination. Additionally, it signals your car to automatically exit the garage – as well as re-park itself – with the placement of your car remote in the cubbyhole at the bottom of the mirror. Delphi is giving us a glimpse of what future family road trips might be like when you finally step into your waiting vehicle. At CES, the auto technology company touted its successful nine- day San Francisco to New York City autonomous drive in an Audi SQ5 SUV last year. Using a range of sensors, a group of engineers navigated tunnels, construction zones, traffic circles and bridges to make a virtually driverless 3,400 mile cross-country journey that, it said, was 99 percent automated and gathered research critical to making autonomous vehicles mainstream. R a d a r a nd l i d a r, amon g o t he r technologies, are making automated driving possible. Standing for light detection and ranging, lidar uses lasers to measure distances and detect objects. It provides a car with a 360 degree image of its surroundings, including other cars, people and animals, enabling it to respond appropriately. As part of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), cameras, lane depar t ure warnings and traffic sign recognition are already helping cautious drivers be even safer. Unlike dad’s Crown Vic, the vehicles of today and the future will keep you increasingly informed of your journey ahead. Mapping company HERE, whose software is already used by 90 percent of car navigation systems, has been working with automakers to s eamle s sly i nteg rate mapp i ng information into the dashboard of your car, to plan your route, help you find parking and inform you of how many miles you can travel before you need to get gas, among other things. By syncing your smart phone with The Future Is Just Around the Corner