Imagine a future in which driving, parking and manufacturing are all made easier and safer. Will smarter technologies and materials lead us into that future? Maybe... .

The Lexus LS 460 "sets a benchmark in a world of ever-smarter cars" by virtually parallel parking itself, Popular Mechanics has proclaimed. You might have seen its TV ad last season (Is it gonna smash all those glasses‽) in which sensors tracked the length and position of surrounding cars (or crystal glasses) and the orientation of the Lexus' wheels. A control module directs the power steering motor. The driver's role? Position the car (with help from the system) and keep a foot on the brake pedal. You know, just in case.

In the bigger picture, automotive vendors are spinning the possibility of a "safety cocoon" aboard the vehicle, "replete with radar, laser, vision systems and ultrasonic sensors," as Design News pointed out in one of its fall 2006 cover stories. The idea is to enable vehicles to "see" their surroundings, provide warnings to drivers and, in extreme emergencies, even commandeer the brakes and steering.

Infiniti's Lane Departure Warning System keeps vehicles from straying dangerously into the path of other vehicles, a common cause of crashes, BusinessWeek recently noted.

A tiny camera mounted on the rear-view mirror reads the road ahead and, with the assistance of an onboard computer, sets of blinking lights and alarm to warn drowsy drivers they may be faltering.

Volvo's Blindspot Information System (BLIS) system uses a camera in the outer mirrors to detect other vehicles entering blind spots and then alerts drivers via a small blinking light that it isn't safe to change lanes.

BMW's night vision system uses a thermal imaging camera to detect human beings, animals and inanimate objects out of the driver's range of vision or the headlights' reach. Then images are beamed to the dash-mounted display, heat readings showing up in bright hues. The use of advanced infrared technology lets BMW's system read the road about 1,000 feet in front of the car without interference from oncoming cars' headlights, according to BusinessWeek.

Meanwhile, General Motors has demonstrated a DSRC-equipped Cadillac CTS that stops itself to avoid accidents. Its enhanced stability-control system predicts where it's heading and prompts the on-board computer to apply the brakes without any input from the driver.

Elsewhere on the GM front, the automaker has secured approximately 43 patents and has roughly another 175 pending on new "active" and "smart" materials for its automobiles. Active materials are those whose physical properties — like shape, hardness, elasticity, etc. — change in response to environmental inputs such as heat, pressure, electricity or magnetic fields. Smart materials are active materials that can sense and respond to such stimuli. GM and other automakers are also developing high-tech finishes that add depth and texture to popular neutral paint colors. For instance, GM is adding microscopic flakes to the paint that appear to change color in the light.

Indeed, cars are getting smarter. Next in line are cars that don't even need a driver, as exhibited since 2004 in an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) race, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge. GM confirmed last month that its Boss Chevy Tahoe, developed in conjunction with scientists at Carnegie Mellon, is equipped with 25 lasers, cameras, radars and a Global Positioning System (GPS) to sense objects and figure out where to go.

Your car may have GPS navigation and radar blind-spot monitoring, but it still doesn't stand a chance against traffic, which, incidentally, will be included as an obstacle in the next DARPA Grand Challenge race. The Department of Transportation's (DOT) Vehicle Infrastructure Integration program could even the odds, says Popular Mechanics. The program, which faces its final testing this year, involves installing a 5.9-GHz short-range wireless link in the car that can talk with other cars, as well as with control units at intersections and along the side of the road. Pool all the information being beamed from cars — speed, location, whether the wipers are on — and you have a map of traffic and weather conditions so that drivers can be directed away from trouble spots.

However, according to Popular Mechanics, the short-term impact is low:

This is only the latest — albeit the smartest — in a long history of federal initiatives to win the war on traffic. Next year, lawmakers will decide whether to wire up hundreds of thousands of intersections and roads, but getting automakers to install standardized transmitters might prove even trickier.

Yet even if you manage to get through traffic, especially in metropolitan areas, the question becomes where to park? So builders are turning to space-saving automated parking garages for multiunit residential and commercial projects.

Robotic Parking Systems, for instance, uses a modular design with efficiency in mind. The Florida company's automated garages are programmed to place cars on the floor that best suits a driver's return time. A computerized system of lifts stows each car in a berth, reducing the need for parking and service personnel. They require no ramps and can house twice the cars in half the space, accommodating anywhere from 20 to 200 cars. RPS has garages in Washington, D.C. (as does a rival garage company) and Hoboken, NJ.

Credit: Robotic Parking Systems

Finally, Ford Motor Co. is applying artificial intelligence (AI) and knowledge-based technologies within its manufacturing arena, according to Ford's Nestor Rychtyckyj at IEEE Computer Society (via IEEE Intelligent Systems, January/February 2007 issue). Such applications include the following: an AI-based approach for vehicle-assembly process planning; an application of AI for ergonomics analysis; and a system that uses machine translation to translate assembly-build instructions for assembly plants that don't use English as their primary language.

Moreover, specific technologies such as natural language processing, controlled languages and ontologies can effectively deal with different types of knowledge — both structured and unstructured — prevalent in the manufacturing environment.

Resources

The Smartest Stuff: Breakthrough Product Awards 2006
Popular Mechanics, November 2006

Eliminating Automobile Accidents with Smart Technology
by Charles J. Murray
Design News, Oct. 9, 2006

Today's High-Tech Cars
by Matt Vella
BusinessWeek, Oct. 2, 2006

Technologue: Morph-Mobiles
by Frank Markus
MotorTrend magazine, May 2, 2007

GM and Carnegie Mellon University Developing Vehicles that Drive Themselves
General Motors, April 3, 2007

Robotic Parking

Intelligent Systems for Manufacturing at Ford Motor Company
by Nestor Rychtyckyj
IEEE Computer Society (via IEEE Intelligent Systems), January/February 2007

Additional

The 2007 Lexus LS 460
by Charles Ofria
The Family Car Web Magazine