New High Tech In The Automobile Business
"You can have any colour you want as long as it's black
," Henry Ford once remarked of the Model T in 1909, but today's automobiles offer much more than just colour choices. In fact, the technology available on new cars today can be called nothing less than amazing. New technology that is either in automobiles now or is coming out soon includes:Retractable doors. It's every lady's wish to have a gentleman open the car door for her. Several new brands of cars have retractable doors that vanish once the driver and passengers start to exit. At the touch of a button, windows lower into the door panels, then the doors, which stretch across both the front and back seats lower themselves below the floor of the vehicle. Opening a car door and holding it open for the lady's entrance or exit or bumping into the car next to you are thing of the past. And since the door retracts into the floor, the bottom clearance is never affected.
Hands-free infotainment systems are now available that can control operation of cell phones and music. Soon, cars will also feature a backup camera with a colour touch screen display.
A new lane departure warning and prevention system will be able to alert the driver to an unintentional lane change and will even nudge the vehicle back to the intended lane.
A new active sound control system uses two microphones inside the cab to detect low-frequency engine noise. When noise is detected, the system transmits a cancelling frequency through the speakers, in effect, "white" noise.
New split-screen technology introduces a viewing screen that displays two images: one on top of the other. The driver can only see the navigation map. The passenger sees only the programmed video.
Better than a CB radio, new car-to-car communication uses WLAN technology, which allows drivers to communicate directly with other relevant vehicles in his immediate area, allowing him to send messages about upcoming road conditions and traffic problems.
A heads-up display system combines a vehicle's full array of sensors and cameras to create a full-windshield display to aid drivers in extremely low visibility situations. For example, if a driver is in a dense fog situation, the vehicle would use infrared cameras to "paint" the edges of the road onto the windshield in order to help the driver keep the car on the road. As a result, there is practically no guesswork, even in the worst visibility.
An optional navigation modem plus system will offer the user direct access to Google for points of interest along the way. The results are displayed on the navigation map.
by: Hugh Mcinnes