Intelligent vehicle systems: Applications and new trends

Abstract

Most people usually do not consider the car sitting in their drivewayto be on the leading edge of new technology. However, for most people, the personal automobile has now become their initial exposure to new intelligent computational technologies such as fuzzy logic, neural networks, adaptive computing, voice recognition and others. In this chapter we will discuss the various intelligent vehicle systems that are now being deployed into motor vehicles. These intelligent system applications impact every facet of the driver experience and improve both vehicle safety and performance. We will also describe recent developments in autonomous vehicle design and demonstrate that this type of technology is not that far away from deployment. Other applications of intelligent system design apply to adapting the vehicle to the driver's preferences and helping the driver stay aware. The automobile industry is very competitive and there are many other new advances in vehicle technology that cannot be discussed yet. However, this chapter provides an introduction into those technologies that have already been announced or deployed and shows how the automobile has evolved from a basic transportation device into an advanced vehicle with a host of on-board computational technologies. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.