Happy new year, dear readers - welcome to the future! One vision of the future is the ‘connected car’, and many drivers seem to want that. As consumer demand for in-vehicle connectivity continues to grow, automotive manufacturers are under pressure to deliver competitive, innovative features while minimizing cost. A major stumbling block is cabling - it’s heavy, difficult to design and expensive.
Continue reading "Ethernet drive" »
Traditionally, onboard control units aren't much more than pimped speedometers - with a few exceptions. With the growing number of electric vehicles and the still underdeveloped charging infrastructure, these units gain importance. In order to inform the driver comprehensively, the OBU needs to get access to vital car systems.
Continue reading "Connectivity assists driver" »
The German motoring organization ADAC has just published its annual Emergency Road Service statistics. In a bout of misguided patriotism, the association interpreted the results as a huge success for German cars. Even a superficial glance on the making of the report shows that this is only true by omitting a very important fact.
Continue reading "How to mislead the public" »
The new specification for MOST150 allows on the one hand for communication and power supply on the same cable, on the other for optical coaxial cables. This is not a contradiction.
Continue reading "MOST goes Coax" »
A big deal for Jenoptik, manufacturer of optical components: The East-Germany-based company just signed a long-term delivery contract with automotive supplier Magna and expands its production of sensors for the automotive industry.
Continue reading "Sensors against collisions" »
What a week! Last week, technics aficionados had the choice between three tremendous trade shows – each one of CeBIT (1 to 5 March), embedded world (1 to 3 March) and 81. International Motorshow Geneva (3 to 13 March) is said to have “performed extremely well” and of course to have been “highly successful”. All of the events had their own key trends, hot topics and even a few highlights.
Continue reading "Where to go? What to see first?" »
EMBEDDED WORLD 2011 – Virtual dashboards, car navigation and camera-based driver assistance from a single chip - impossible? Maybe, but Fujitsu says it can, with the SoC MB86R12 ‘Emerald-P’ with integrated APIX2 interface. It seems that the Doubtless, in cars of the future the is the virtual display will be the primary interface with the driver, replacing traditional instruments such as pointers, knobs and buttons and maybe even the view of the road ahead. It could bring entirely new applications into the car, not only increasing comfort but also safety, as is the case with camera-based driver assistance systems such as night vision assistance and head up display applications, the engineers of Fujitsu are convinced.
Continue reading "All in one" »
For me it is not terribly clear why one needs high-definition video in a car’s dashboard, since one is not supposed to watch the newest Coen brothers movie there and even a Sat Nav doesn’t need 1080p, much less the »virtual« tachometers. However, nowadays it’s even being installed in mid-range cars, so there seems to be some kind of demand. A good thing for semiconductor manufacturers.
Continue reading "embedded world 2011: Infotainment-SoC" »
In 2008, the number of motorcyclists involved in fatal accidents in the European Union amounted to 5520 – 14% of all road deaths. Since the introduction and standardization of ABS has lowered
Continue reading "ABS for two wheels" »
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