Move Over God, Dog: Tech Is My Co-Pilot

Some of the most exciting innovations in consumer electronics aren?t happening in your living room or office. They?re happening in your car, and these advances go far beyond electric drivetrains. They include navigation, infotainment, driver assistance and other technologies with the potential to change how we drive and improve safety in every driving situation.

For the first time we?re making the internet mobile in an automobile: It no longer will be a problem to find and use vital information while traveling. The spectrum of mobility services will develop into intelligent and efficient solutions specifically designed for the expected growth in short-range travel in urban communities. Currently, electronics spearhead new development in cars. Ideas of electronics, lifestyle and automobiles are becoming ever more closely tied.

The Electronics Research Lab in Silicon Valley is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of mobility now and in the future. Designers, engineers and even psychologists work together within a worldwide network of research centers.

Good ideas and forward thinking is required if we are to conquer the many challenges of modern mobility, such as complex traffic patterns and increasing congestion, the growing need for safety, and increased efficiency. The solutions to these problems range from advanced instrumentation and intuitive user interfaces to artificial intelligence, energy-efficient vehicles and ?social? vehicles that communicate with each other and with the road.

There is no limit to the innovation.

Our cars are becoming our co-pilots as intelligent technologies make them safer, more comfortable and more autonomous. But rather than increase driver distractions, we want to minimize the input and attention required to obtain the information drivers need.

Sound futuristic? No. Audi developed a touchpad to make accessing our infotainment systems more intuitive. It makes many tasks easier and safer. When we combine a touchpad with voice recognition, we allow for still more choices with fewer distractions.

Supporting drivers when they need help is a major goal. We want to understand the best way to use this technology to provide additional support to drivers in critical situations.

To accomplish these goals, we worked with Stanford University to develop an autonomous Audi TTS that drove to the summit of Pikes Peak in September. This was no Sunday drive: We pushed the car close to its handling limit.

The goal of this exercise is not to take driving away from the driver. We want to learn how experiments like this will help us maximize safety and minimize collisions while remaining open to whatever the future demands.

Another concept car, Junior 3, parked itself at a parking garage on Fisherman?s Wharf in San Francisco. The system does exactly what you want it to: Get out, tell the car to park itself and go shopping. When you?re ready to leave, simply summon the car on your iPhone. The car does the rest.

There is still a long way to go before we?re all driving autonomous cars that park themselves. But step by step, we are bringing some of these features to cars today, and using them to increase safety.

Sound futuristic? No. These technologies have led to blind-spot detection and lane-keeping assistance systems, parking assist, adaptive cruise control and even heads-up display and night-vision systems.

One noticeable change in cars will be the ability for vehicles to communicate with each other, the road and the internet, creating a seamless network. The goal is to create intelligent vehicles that interact with each other, their occupants, the physical and virtual worlds surrounding them. We want to bridge the gap between consumer electronics and the vehicle.

These innovations free up time for the driver by taking care of the most tedious of driving chores, such as parking or bumper-to-bumper traffic. This is helpful because we can live a world where vehicles are personal assistants. Current technology is making this possible by integrating wireless hot-spot and internet connections in our vehicles, getting point-of-interest or real-time traffic data on brilliant graphic displays.

Sound futuristic? No. This is available now in many vehicles.

Imagine a future where your car recognizes you as you approach. Technology will enable the car to start itself, download your schedule and provide the optimal route to get you where you?re going as quickly as possible.

To make things really cool, the navigation might be in 3-D using augmented reality. The navi could provide a virtual tour of the best restaurants in town and make reservations with a single voice command.

Cars of the future won?t only be intuitive to our needs and wants, but they will be intuitive to what?s happening around them. By integrating incoming information from these sources, cars not only communicate with their drivers to avoid traffic, but also inform them of open parking spaces and dangerous road conditions ahead.

Sound futuristic? No. We?re already testing this technology.

Where? Here in Silicon Valley. It?s a place for generating ideas ? ideas that generate real results. By going to the heart of electronics and innovation we will find answers to tomorrow?s mobility challenges.

Photo: The autonomous TTS tests on a salt lake. (Courtesy Audi)

Video: Riding along in the autonomous TTS. (Wired.com)

Source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/shDt6Y-wm0I/

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