Carmakers tap battlefield technology

By Earle Eldridge
USA Today

Military technology used in the war with Iraq to guide aircraft, launch missiles and locate the enemy could become the brains of the family car.

Over the past decade, auto companies have tapped military suppliers for technology to improve their vehicles. War accelerates technological development, debugs the hardware and often brings down the cost.

Automakers are looking ahead to a melding of this war's guidance and control systems into a kind of autopilot for cars, taking a cue from missiles used by the coalition troops in Iraq that have terrain-following systems. Those can guide the missiles up over mountains and drop them down into valleys for several miles en route to targets.

Car companies think they can adapt that to create a car with enough electronic brains to cruise down the highway, making turns and speeding up or slowing with little or no help from the driver.

Like those missiles, the automotive systems would use global positioning system (GPS) satellites to track around curves, and radar to change speed as traffic conditions dictate.

Automakers also hope to use military technology to gather intelligence about the surrounding environment and feed it into a computerized "central command" center in the car to evaluate circumstances and help the driver make decisions or trigger some of the car's equipment.

Automakers already use such systems to slam the brakes harder than the driver is if the car's sensors detect emergency conditions. Now they hope better technology will push that to higher levels.

"We will know traffic conditions. We will know if you are starting to get sleepy. We will know if it's raining. We will know if it's below 35 degrees outside," says Alan Gagney, a spokesman for General Motors product development.

"We have a couple cars we are experimenting with now that can detect an accident before it happens," says Said Deep, a spokesman for Ford Motor.

Using radar, the vehicle can spot another vehicle coming on a collision course at high speed and respond by cinching safety belts tightly and hitting the brakes before the driver can respond, Deep says.

Military technology already used in cars includes:

• GPS: It provides map guidance and route directions in automotive navigation systems. Those are priced about $2,000 as sophisticated, factory-installed built-ins, to as little as $300 for simple add-on versions from electronics stores.
• Night vision: Cadillac's DeVille has a $2,250 night-vision system that allows drivers to see images beyond the reach of headlights. The system, the only one offered by any automaker, uses thermal imaging, which tracks heat sources.
• Heads-up display: Several GM vehicles have digital displays of speed, fuel or other information that appear to float ahead of the driver over the hood. It's actually projected onto the windshield by a dashboard pod and allows drivers to read some information without glancing down, thus the name. It first was used in fighter aircraft.
• Smart cruise control: Sometimes called adaptive cruise control, it uses either radar or laser beams to keep a car a set distance behind the vehicle in front of it, slowing and speeding up to keep pace. The Lexus LS 430 sedan, for example, uses laser technology for its Dynamic Laser Cruise Control system. Radar and laser technology are widely used in the military to track aircraft movement.
• Tire pressure monitors: These warn drivers if pressure's too low, thus unsafe. They have been used on several military vehicles, including Humvees, and are required on all new cars and light trucks beginning later this year.