New System Helps Self-Driving Cars See Through Thick Fog
Uber Halts Autonomous Vehicle Testing After Death
Holograms Could Yield Next Wave of Heads-Up Displays
A new holography approach could increase the size of eye boxes used in heads-up displays for planes and cars. Researchers from the University of Arizona have created functional prototype heads-up displays using holographic optical elements, achieving an eye box substantially larger than what is currently used. Transparent heads-up displays are often used in airplanes and…
R&D Special Focus: Automotive Advancements
New Supercar Showcases Future of Autonomous Vehicles
A newly designed “supercar” is pushing the limits of autonomous vehicles. A team from Mississippi State University’s (MSU) Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) has developed a self-driving, all-electric sport utility vehicle that could lead to the creation of safer roadways and accessibility to independent automotive transportation for people with disabilities. The new supercar, known…
Understanding the Potential of Carbon Fiber Composites for Automobiles
Electric Vehicles Could Impact the Grid
The push for plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) without coordination could harm the nation’s electric grid, according to a new study. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed a new computer simulation to explore the impacts in-home charging could have on the nation’s grid. “Realizing the full benefits of…
New Aluminum Alloys Can Take the Heat, Improve Engine Efficiency
R&D 100 Award Winner ACMZ Cast Aluminum Alloys from Oak Ridge National Laboratory was 2017 R&D 100 Award Winner. The innovation was co-developed by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The winners were announced at The R&D 100 Awards Gala held in Orlando, Florida on Nov. 17. The R&D 100 Awards have served as the most prestigious innovation awards program for the…
The Rise of Autonomous Vehicles: Planning for Deployment Not Just Development
Next-Gen LiDAR System Helps Autonomous Vehicles Stay on the Road
While the focus in the automotive industry is often on aesthetics, one company has created the next generation of LiDAR systems that will help self-driving vehicles avoid crashes. AEye, a California-based company that creates advanced vision hardware, software and algorithms for autonomous vehicles, has developed iDAR, an intelligent data collection system that fuses LiDAR, computer…
New Autonomous Car Can Handle Snow and Ice
While self-driving cars are smooth sailing on dry land with no traffic, snow and ice have always proved to be a hurdle for autonomous vehicles. Researchers from the VTT Technical Research Center in Finland have developed Martti—a self-driving vehicle with a system that is designed to maneuver rough and icy conditions. “We have developed special…
Transportation Agencies Anticipate a Future with Connected, Autonomous Vehicles
Nissan Developing Brain-to-Vehicle Technology to Enhance Driving Experience
What if your car knew you were braking a few milliseconds before your foot pressed down on the brake? That possibility may become a reality in the next decade thanks to new technology being developed by Nissan that will enable vehicles to interpret brain signals from a driver that will speed up reaction times. The…
New Depth Sensors Could Be Sensitive Enough for Self-Driving Cars
For the past 10 years, the Camera Culture group at MIT’s Media Lab has been developing innovative imaging systems — from a camera that can see around corners to one that can read text in closed books — by using “time of flight,” an approach that gauges distance by measuring the time it takes light projected into a scene…
Redefining ‘Safety’ for Self-Driving Cars
A New Tool to Help Plan for Expected Growth in Electric Vehicles
More than 82,000 electric vehicles were registered in Southern California between 2011 and 2015. The number of new plug-in electric vehicles registered there in 2015 increased a whopping 992 percent from 2011. Now, a report produced by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation forecasts continued exponential growth in the electric vehicle market, with more than…
Novel Device Could Yield More Affordable Hydrogen Cars
Tesla Shows Off New Electric Truck
Truck drivers may soon be added to the list of electric vehicle users. On Nov. 15, Tesla unveiled their new electric semi-truck, as well as a roadster, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted would be the fastest production car ever made. The semi-truck is expected to go into production in 2019. Musk anticipates the semi-truck…
Uber Makes Plans for Flying Ride-Sharing Service
The prospect of getting around in cities of the future by flying car was a sci-fi trope in movies and TV spanning from The Jetsons and Blade Runner to The Fifth Element. Now, the ride-sharing service Uber, still currently on the ground, is unveiling its plans to offer a kind of subway of the air, by which commuters and travelers…
Novel Analog-Based Radar for Autonomous Cars
Two Intelligent Vehicles are Better than One
Intelligent vehicles get their intelligence from cameras, Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors, and navigation and mapping systems. But there are ways to make them even smarter. Researchers at EPFL are working to improve the reliability and fault tolerance of these systems by combining the data they gather with that from other vehicles. This can,…
GM to Offer Two More Electric Vehicles in Next 18 Months
Even though gasoline-powered SUVs are what people are buying now, General Motors is betting that electric vehicles will be all the rage in the not-to-distant future. The Detroit automaker is promising two new EVs on Chevrolet Bolt underpinnings in the next 1 ½ years and more than 20 electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by…
‘Rubber Material’ Could Lead to Scratch-Proof Car Paint
Led by Dr Elton Santos from the University’s School of Mathematics and Physics, an international team of researchers have found superlubricity in a few layers of graphene – a concept where friction vanishes or very nearly vanishes. The experts also found that a few layers of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) are as strong as diamond…
More Durable, Less Expensive Fuel Cells
A team of engineers at the University of Delaware has developed a technology that could make fuel cells cheaper and more durable, a breakthrough that could speed up the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles. They describe their results in a paper published in Nature Communications on Monday, Sept. 4. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are a green alternative to…