The construction of modern adaptive control cruise(acc) in cars belongs to one man called Ralph Teetor. A powerful invention for anybody, especially for Teetor, who was absolutely blind. An adaptive control cruise is a device that controls the speeds of a car automatically. Unfortunately, autonomous vehicles are still ways away from becoming mass-market productions and acc is the closest thing we have that enables the car drive itself partly. In comparison with old-school cruise control which is only able to maintain one constant speed ,adaptive cruise control has an ability  to adjust car’s speed on the fly and therefore increase a safety.

How does it work?

An adaptive cruise control is often implemented on cars using radars although some use lasers radar is more common since it works better in adverse weather conditions . It is usually mounted on the front of the car near bumper or behind the grille so when you turn the cruise control your car will fire a radar beam which travels until it hits another vehicle in front of you.

The return signal is processed by a computer to determine how far behind the second car you are. The cruise control uses this information to keep your car a set numbers of seconds behind by dynamically  changing your speed. This gives you an advantage of not having to break and readjust your cruise control if you get stuck behind a car that moving slowly or frequently alters its speed and also helps to mitigate the effect of normal cruise control lowing you into a false sense of security potentially slowing your reaction time in the event there is a sudden change in a speed required.

Now many adaptive cruise control systems also feature collision avoidance where the car automatically brake more aggressively if it senses that you are getting way too close to another vehicle or object. Furthermore, you will also get an audio or a visual warnings that you are about to hit something.

Some adaptive cruise control systems can even work with other technologies to give more features. For example ,a system that is designed with GPS can automatically slow down when you are in construction zone that GPS knows about or help to control your speed more effectively on hills improving not only safety but gas mileage as well. It’s now surprising that adaptive cruise control like many optional features doesn’t come cheap and it’s usually add-on that will set you back a couple thousand dollars but it might just be worth buying if you a little inattentive driver.

“The most challenging part of such technologies is predicting human behavior,” said head of Yandex’s self-driving division Dmitry Polishchuk. “It’s easier to drive when traffic is light and almost everyone nearby is following the traffic rules. As soon as the traffic gets heavier, drivers change their behavior, violating rules more often and the entire situation on the road becomes less and less predictable. We are learning to better deal with these dynamics now to prepare for these kinds of challenges wherever they happen next.”

References :

1)https://curiosity.com/topics/you-can-thank-this-blind-man-for-inventing-modern-cruise-control-curiosity/

2)https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/17/yandexs-self-driving-cars-have-driven-1-million-miles/

As you may know, the biggest and most important annual Customer  Electronics Show(or CES) was held in Las Vegas this year. The best new tech innovations that we can expect to see released over the next 12 months were introduced.

There was the perfect occasion for BMW to showcase some of its latest innovations. And one of the highlights of CES 2020 became i3 Urban Suite concept at the BMW Group stand. The standard i3’s driver seat and dashboard remain untouched, but the rest of the interior has been completely redone. The end result looks like something found in a trendy hotel room—there’s even a small desk space for times when the driver can’t find a Starbucks. The front passenger seat has been tossed out, along with the rear bench seat. In their place BMW has fitted a sort of lounge chair with a foot rest next to the driver. What is more, BMW’s added a screen that flips down from the headliner mostly for entertainment. Inside the BMW i3 Urban Suite, the passenger can connect their iPhone to the car wirelessly and also mirroring their mobile device’s content to the flip-down overhead screen and then work on the screen. A screen flips down from the headliner so passengers can now watch their favorite shows and movies via Amazon Fire TV. The on-demand access to vast content catalogs and voice control can be initiated through Amazon’s Alexa.

A carefully considered approach to materials selection was a high priority for the BMW i3 Urban Suite, in keeping with the company’s commitment to responsible use of resources. All the buttons in the cabin are manufactured without the use of chrome and are therefore free of toxins. The same applies to the thermoelectric cup holders and the table lamp. The table and bag tray are both made of oiled oak from a certified timber supplier, while the olive tanning process used for the leather trim means it is also completely non-toxic. Recycled materials feature prominently in the car’s cabin as well. All the fabric upholstery inside the vehicle is made purely of recycled PET material and at least 70 per cent of the fleece lining underneath has also been recycled. A particularly important step towards a circular economy has been made with the floor mats. New manufacturing processes have been employed to reduce the composition to one single combination of materials, which can then be fed back into the materials cycle fully when no longer in use in the vehicle.

Here’s how BMW describes its mission: “The aim was to create an inviting space with a high feel-good factor in which to spend time – the perfect place for relaxing, enjoying in-car entertainment or focusing on work in a laid-back setting.”

References:

https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0304187EN/the-bmw-group-at-the-consumer-electronics-show-ces-2020-in-las-vegas?

language=enhttps://www.motorauthority.com/news/1126621_ces-bmw-i3-urban-suite-concept-makes-prom-night-even-more-awkward

CES 2020: BMW i3 Urban Suite is your hotel on four wheels

All we know how boring and irritating the process of crossing the border through the airport could be with all its endless lines at the check-in counter, border check and boarding gate.

With the introduction of biometrics, lifelong waitings may become a thing of the past. Biometric technology such as fingerprint scanning or facial recognition on smartphones is already being used by millions of people around the world as a way to improve security. Recently though, it’s also been adopted by airlines and airports to transform the customer journey.

For example, Delta, an American airline,has already announced that the Atlanta airport’s Terminal F has become the “first biometric terminal” in the United States where passengers can use facial recognition technology “from curb to gate.”

How does it work?

First of all, customers will have to provide passport information during online check-in. Or, as an alternative, they will be able to scan it in the airport. Afterwards, travelers can click “Look” to check data on these automated kiosks. Travelers’ face scans will be matched to passport or visa photos on file with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Now it gives an opportunity to several categories of passengers, including citizens and many visitors, to verify their identities, followed by a brief chat with an officer.

Alternative approaches using palm-vein identification in South Korea are also part of this trend.

 

Air passengers in South Korea will be able to use palm vein biometrics for authentication during boarding checks, after the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute (KFTC) and the Korea Airports Corporation (KAC) signed a memorandum of understanding(MoU).

The MOU contains an agreement on sharing palm vein information registered in the financial sector with public airlines.

Customers who register their biometric information with their bank will be able to easily complete procedures such as identification and check-in at airports across the country.

Users can also be identified using biometric information at duty-free stores as well as for currency exchange.

The target facilities are 14 domestic airports, and the starting date of the use of the biometric information is due in January in 2020.

The technology is growing in popularity for precisely this reason: it offers a way to process passengers through airports faster and more cheaply. SITA, an air-transport technology company, recently found that 77% of airports and 71% of airlines plan to invest heavily in biometric identification in the next three years. Now it is already used in Britain, Singapore, Japan, China and America. And one airline says that by using biometric boarding gates in Los Angeles it can get 400 passengers onto a plane in 22 minutes—half the usual time.

References:

1)https://resources.vistair.com/articles/airline-industry-technology-trends-2019

2)https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/biometric-screening-airports-spreading-fast-some-fear-face-scanning-systems-ncna982756

3)https://www.futuretravelexperience.com/2019/01/10-technology-trends-airlines-airports-2019/

4)https://www.eturbonews.com/254446/7-new-technologies-that-will-rock-the-future-of-air-travel/

5)https://www.smithsdetection.com/insight/aviation/looking-forward-to-2020-beyond-top-trends-for-airports-and-aviation/

6)https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2018/11/29/delta-usas-first-biometric-terminal-ready-go-atlanta-airport/2145655002/

7)https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/11/12/how-airports-use-biometric-technology

8)http://koreabizwire.com/palm-vein-authentication-to-speed-up-airport-services/139770

‘’NASA unveils its first electric airplane’’ was exactly the first thing I heard on today’s morning newscast . Aircraft industry is now one of the most dynamic and exciting field. So not surprisingly that new explorations and discoveries occur on a daily basis, allowing to uncover new means of  transportation and also to improve that ones which are not impeccable enough.

I am convinced that almost everyone is familiar with drone as a flying robot that can be remotely controlled. But have you ever thought that it can become a competitive mode of transport?

Today it is our reality with a startup, founded by Alexander Zosel and Stephan Wolf, called Volocopter.

The ‘Volocopter’ looks like a helicopter and can be piloted remotely or on board. The drone is designed primarily for stable and safe flight, and to be used to nip around the skies above the world’s largest cities. One of the key ideas behind it is that it’s built with lots of redundancy – meaning that even if multiple things go wrong, it can still stay airborne.

The Volocopter took its first manned flight in Southern Germany on March 30^th  in 2016. With e-volo’s managing director Alexander Zosel in the cockpit, the truly strange-looking aircraft took to the skies above an airfield, hovered for several minutes, and then landed.

The Volocopter already has a permit to fly in Germany and has conducted numerous test flights (without passengers) in Dubai. The company said their dream is of a future where every human being can personally fly their own drone, and help major cities ease their traffic woes. Powered entirely by electricity, the Volocopter at the moment can fly for around 30 minutes and with a range of seventeen miles.

References:

https://www.volocopter.com/en/company/

https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/7/11388406/volocopter-18-rotors-manned-flight-evolo-germany

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/volocopter-the-worlds-first-flying-passenger-drone

Imagine travelling non-stop up to 1080 km per hour above land or underground. This is Hyperloop. The Hyperloop would consist of capsules transported at high speeds through the length of low-pressure tubes. To simplify the science, reports suggest the pods would work similarly to an air hockey table.

The idea could reduce journey times over long distances, but there are many challenges for the rival developers to overcome before any such project can become a reality.

Elon Musk first mentioned that he was thinking about a concept for a “fifth mode of transport”, calling it the Hyperloop, in July 2012 at a PandoDaily event in Santa Monica. This hypothetical high-speed mode of transportation would have the following characteristics: immunity to weather, collision free, twice the speed of a plane, low power consumption, and energy storage for 24-hour operations.

From late 2012 until August 2013, a group of engineers from both Tesla and SpaceX worked on the conceptual modeling of Hyperloop. An early system design was published in the Tesla and SpaceX blogs which describes one potential design, function, pathway, and cost of a hyperloop system.

What is the difference between a hyperloop and a high speed train?

• Environmental impact

The hyperloop will be powered by solar panels placed along the outside of of the tube in comparison with bullet trains which are electrical.

• Price

It is much cheaper to build Hyperloop transportation system. Below you are able to see the total amount of money needed to construct this innovative train whereas fast train requires about $10.6 billion

• Availability

While Bullet Trains are already running in many developed countries,it is expected to start operations in India by 2023;Hyperloop One is still in testing phase and might be commercially available in the next 5 to 7 yrs

• Speed

The top speed ever achieved by a bullet train was 500 km/hr by Shanghai Train in China.In terms of Hyperloop, it must be at least twice faster.

How long until Hyperloop is here?

We are finally getting to the point where the Hyperloop no longer seems like a pipe dream!An offshoot company wants to build a full line in Abu Dhabi in 2020,and one might connect Chicago and Cleveland.

Exciting,isn’t it?

References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop#History
2. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/29/how-a-hyperloop-may-change-how-and-why-we-travel.html
3. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/050815/elon-musks-hyperloop-economically-feasible.asp
4. https://www.google.com.ua/amp/s/futurism.com/hyperloop-ceo-thoughts-future-of-transportation/amp

#innovation#futuretransportation#science#futuretech#technologies