When I close my eyes and picture the
future of the automobile, several things come to mind. Maybe a vessel that moves like a flying
saucer that only George Jetson could maneuver, or a hovercraft that can
traverse both land and sea? The state of vehicle technology has amazed me with
each passing day. In today’s blog, we
discuss the future of car technology and how it will affect the way we
roll.
Emergency Steer Assist
To begin, this system does not take over
and steer for you, it’s designed to compliment emergency braking systems. According to Popular Mechanics: “ESA
works with your electric steering rack to vary the torque by direction, thus
very convincingly "suggesting" the proper steering wheel motion.
Suppose you need to swerve left—the torque in the clockwise motion is greatly
increased (resistance), but it's ridiculously easy to turn the wheel
counterclockwise. Similarly, during the maneuver recovery phase (you may know
this as the tank slapper), the inverse is true, the steering working in tandem
with ESC (electronic stability control, mandatory on all cars in 2011) to
control the aftereffects of the swerve.
Adaptive
Cruise Control
ACC
is only available on a few select vehicles, but by utilizing radar sensors on
the front of a vehicle, adaptive cruise control can tell when an object is in
front of it and if that object is moving and how quickly. Thus, maintaining a constant speed, but also
maintaining a set distance between it and the car in front. Brilliant!
Self
Parking Cars
Advance
parking Guidance Systems use sensors all around the car to guide it into a
parallel parking space. So, if you’re in
the drivers seat, and you remove your hands from the steering wheel and your
feet from the gas pedal…viola! There are a couple stipulations, however. One, the spot has to be at least 6 feet long,
and you have to position the vehicle and tell it where to go, but still…this is
something you would expect to see in a sci-fi movie! Thumbs up! There are countless other new devices in the
market!! Feel free to add any that
you’ve seen.
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