Opinion
The Future of Driving?
Design Ambassador Eleanor Fosberry, MEng IEng MIED, discusses current and future vehicle design developments.
I have spent a great deal of time during the last few months driving around the country on IED business, which has given me plenty of time to consider the design development of our vehicles and what the future may bring.
To allow me to fulfil the travel requirements of this role, I recently bought my first car. It has a number of features, that I think are great, but they make my driving behaviour lazier – auto setting for headlights, cruise control, automatic windscreen wipers.
However, these are nothing compared to what is now available, and what is being developed. Car manufacturers are gradually phasing out the human element of driving – Google is road testing driverless cars and Volvo is claiming that no one will be killed or injured
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in any new Volvo by 2020. Even now you can buy cars with various features like lane detection, park assist and collision avoidance.
Park assist uses technology such as an ultrasonic-based sensing system to scan the parking space, calculate the optimal steering angle and quickly steer the vehicle into a parking spot. The driver activates the system when they are looking for a parking space and the sensors search for an appropriately sized space, only as little as 20% longer than the car. Once the driver is notified they engage reverse gear, relinquish control of the steering wheel and the system then steers the car safely into the parking space. The driver follows audible and on-screen prompts to switch gears and operate the brake and accelerator as appropriate. Parking sensors
warn the driver when they get close to the vehicle behind and in front. This will reduce much of the parking-associated frustration many drivers experience.
Lane departure warning systems are also available, which detect when the car is drifting between lanes. Depending on the settings chosen, the car will either issue a warning through steering wheel vibration, or automatically correct the path of the vehicle.
Collision avoidance uses light detection and ranging (LIDAR, an optical remote sensing technology with multiple applications including geology, geography and archaeology) to monitor the distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in front, to determine the risk of a collision.
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