The transportation space has seen a burst of technology—not in one particular area, but rather across the board from improvements in electrical power systems to extremely sophisticated telematics to self-driving cars. Cars today have more electronics that ever before. Much more is coming, though, as features such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) become standard features instead of expensive options.
These changes are being made possible by improvements in sensors, processors and memory, software, and even human interfaces that need to be integrated in real time (Fig. 1). Here are some of the latest technologies and how their relationship with other technologies makes them even more important in automotive environments.
Sensor Advances
Smartphones have turned tiny digital cameras into commodity items in a way that other applications—digital cameras, for instance—could not. Automotive applications continue to benefit from the availability of cameras that can stream 4K video. High-definition cameras are being used for obstacle and object recognition for forward-looking ADAS applications in conjunction with artificial-intelligence (AI) machine-learning (ML) software. Here the higher resolution is important, and it’s useful for backup cameras, too.