Electronics

Continental forecasts affordable autonomous driving By the year 2025, fully autonomous driving could be a reality, according to the Tier 1 supplier of advanced driver assistance systems. Its development will be spurred by safety concerns, insurance industry incentives, and even regulation. Read full story

Benteler leads engineering of MAN heavy-duty serial hybrid concept Featuring a diesel engine from Audi as a range extender and modular energy storage beneath the driver’s cab, the MAN Metropolis plug-in hybrid truck concept—developed in cooperation with Benteler Engineering Services and revealed at the recent IAA Hanover Show—will begin a two-year field test as a refuse collection vehicle in January 2013. Read full story

Will DOT force trucks to talk? After roughly a decade of research into dedicated short range communications (DSRC), U.S. government agencies are preparing to decide whether to mandate adoption. Read full story

Cars converse in largest-ever on-road ITS test project The U.S. government, via several of its transportation-related agencies, is sponsoring the project, which it claims is the largest-ever road test of connected-vehicle crash-avoidance technologies. Read full story

Synopsys enhances virtual prototyping tool for embedded software development The new release of Virtualizer improves modeling productivity through a new model authoring feature and IP specification import function. Read full story

Next-gen active safety systems from Meritor WABCO A wider, longer radar beam range and the ability to detect stationary objects are key upgrades to a collision mitigation system, one of three safety products recently unveiled by Meritor WABCO for the commercial-vehicle market. Read full story

Autonomous braking a must for EuroNCAP 5-star rating? EuroNCAP says that from 2014, new cars in Europe will almost certainly need to be equipped with autonomous emergency braking (AEB) to gain a 5-star safety rating. From November 2013, the European Type Approval of new commercial vehicles will require AEB to be fitted. Read full story

Platooning tested for first time on public roads The European SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project has carried out a test in Spain of a road train comprising several vehicles automatically driving in convoy. Read full story

Sauer-Danfoss optimizes valve efficiency, updates software Robust performance in a small package with the new PVG 100 High-Flow valve option. Read full story