The BMW Vision ConnectedDrive concept car recognizes its environs and can commune with other cars as well as passing buildings, so that you know where you are driving.
In the near future, your car will no more be a mere car as it will be capable of connecting with the outer world, and even foresee driving behavior. It will also become aware of where it is at present, which buildings it is passing and the cars close to it on the road. From now on when you wave hello to the robot car it will respond to your call.
The BMW ConceptVision Connected Drive sports car had made its first appearance at the Geneva Auto Show this month, applies an exclusive color scheme to feed information to the driver like for instance blue for entertainment alternatives, red for safety concerns.
The BMW ConceptVision renders a way to communicate with the cars’ environs too. For instance, suppose you are driving through New Orleans and go by a coffee bar, you can find the current music play list and insert it in your own in-car entertainment system.
Thilo Koslowski, the vice president of automotive research at Gartner, said that “this kind of location-awareness is the latest auto tech trend. The car senses where you are at all times, knows your music and movie preferences, and can interact with other cars on the roadway.”
He further added to FoxNews.com “Cars are becoming smarter and communicating intelligently with the outside world. Over the next ten years, he said, cars will ‘crowd source’ information from other drivers as they pass your vehicle, learning where the best restaurants are located and the best traffic routes. The car will become an information hub: ordering movie tickets for you and even making dinner reservations. Cars will become the ultimate mobile device; and even more so because they truly are mobile. Making information more accessible to the driver has become a new automotive focus.”
Safety betterments
Koslowski alleged that drivers need more info as they drive, without giving up safety. Mercedes-Benz and Volvo have formulated new engineering that can feel a close at hand crash and hit the brakes mechanically. The Volvo S60 can sense a passing walker and spark a caution light before braking.
Paul Laurenza, an attorney at Dykema said “NHTSA will decide by 2013 whether to regulate new vehicle-to-vehicle safety warning technologies for collision avoidance. These technologies may make their way into new cars by the end of this decade. Of course, some automakers, such as Audi and BMW, will sometimes introduce the new technologies long before they are mandated.”
He further added that “We should continue on the path of having vehicles that use these sophisticated systems to assist the driver and, if necessary, correct for potential collisions where the driver is either distracted or inattentive.”
Self-driving cars
According to Koslowski one of the most elevated goals of automotive engineering is to make cars drive themselves. Google of late formulated developed a program with Toyota Priuses that allowed cars drive on California roadways with slight driver participation. No doubt this self-directed driving makes sense, Koslowski said. The reason being, that a computer can respond much quicker than a human being can communicate with other cars and the roadway itself.
Dr. Erik Coelingh who is a technical lead for security and based in Sweden has formulated a “platooning” engineering science according to which one lead car, driven by a human, inputs data back to other self driving cars in a train.
