Powerful networks of computers buried in the guts of cars and trucks are increasingly making life-critical decisions on the highway, although motorists hardly realize what's going on behind the dashboard and under the hood.
Vehicle electronics are advancing so rapidly that cars have become among the most sophisticated electronic products on the consumer market, built with reliability levels and safety philosophies borrowed from jetliners and nuclear power plants.
Software is notoriously prone to breakdowns in offices and homes around the world, and nobody would knowingly trust their lives to a personal computer or cell phone, given their software glitches, disconnections and other balky behavior.
But with little fanfare, the automobile industry is aggressively pushing forward with an electronics architecture for vehicles that relies on dozens of microprocessors--distributed throughout the engine, transmission, suspension, braking system and body--that are more and more reliant on sophisticated software.
These systems make instantaneous decisions about when to apply brakes to enhance stability, deploy air bags in a crash, turn on windshield wipers in the rain and shut down fuel systems to prevent explosions.
At the same time, these microprocessors are being linked together in sophisticated data networks that allow seemingly unrelated parts of the car to communicate. The windows communicate with the vehicle's security system. The anti-lock brakes communicate with the suspension system. The engine communicates with the transmission. And, of course, there are the global positioning satellite systems, Internet and cellular phone systems now on board many cars.
Mechanical engineers, long the authorities behind the design and development of cars, are increasingly sharing their domain with electrical engineers.
"You will see more and more of the chief engineers coming from the electrical area," predicts UC Berkeley engineering professor J. Karl Hedrick, director of the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) intelligent roadway program.
Car companies are experiencing a cultural revolution, and independent companies such as Delphi Automotive Systems, Visteon, Denso and Bosch are becoming critical suppliers of electronic technology to the car makers. Their role in automotive design is destined to grow dramatically.
