Intelligent transport
The market and applications of intelligent transport and automotive can be subdivide into five main areas. Although specifically different, there is generic commonality whether on land, sea, or air transport.
In-vehicle systems: efficiency, safety, environment
Systems which improve fuel efficiency such as engine management systems, safety systems which operate on information gathered within or in close proximity to the vehicle such as collision detection, or comfort, whether of occupants (drivers and passengers), or of cargo, e.g. frozen food.
Traffic sensing, signalling and management
Systems which enable the control and management of traffic whether land, sea, or air to be controlled. These are large and complex systems which assist controllers to optimise traffic flow, whether in city streets, around a busy air port or sea port, and usually require an extensive sensor network to detect and manage the extended system.
Driver/pilot information systems
Covering navigational aids, vehicle system monitoring of engine state, weather conditions, destination or route specific problem monitoring.
Situation aware systems
The ability to monitor the external environment from within the vehicle. At a simple level this could be reversing sensors and a car, at the other extreme it could be a complex automatic landing system for aircraft or shipping. There is also significant activity in developing automotive RADAR systems for vehicle and road positioning.
Positional/ attitude sensing
The most common of these systems presently available is the GPS system. However, this will only provide a location to within a few metres accuracy in X,Y, Z. For certain applications such as automatic docking or parking, the accuracy, whether relative or absolute, must be increased. Additionally, attitudinal information (yaw, pitch, roll) is also required.
