Smarter Cars By: Sean Eddington

Evolution of cars 1923-Power windshield wipers became standard and radio’s were offered as accessories First powered windows were introduced electric door locks for luxury cars only Seatbelts offered as standard equipment Lexus LS460 can parallel park itself!

Cars Parking Themselves Lexus has found a way to make their LS460 parallel park itself.

How? You pull up alongside a space, making sure to pass the rear car before aligning next to the front car. A sonar sensor on the front fender measures the length of the space and your distance from the cars. Put the car in Reverse, and the rearview camera, which comes with the required navigation system, presents a wide rear view on the in-dash display.

Pressing the parallel-parking icon at the bottom of the touch-screen places a simple green square roughly over the parking space. Arrows let you adjust its position. Once it's centered, you press OK, take your hands off the wheel and use only the brake to ease the car backward.

The steering wheel flings itself around under control of the electric power steering, angling you in. All you have to do is keep the speed low enough and stop the car when the display shows that you're closing on the rear car's bumper. Then you put it in drive, square the car and you're done.

Lexus Evolving First Generation - LS400 = UCF10/11 Series I: Series II: Second Generation - LS400 = UCF20/21 Series III: Series IV: Third Generation - LS430 = UCF30/31 Series I: Series II: Fourth Generation - LS460/LS460L = UCF40/41 Series I: Unknown

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New project Sandia National Laboratories has been working on a car that can determine human behavior. Using electroencephalograms (EEG’s) that send electrodes to judge the electrical activities going to the brain while driving. The system detects how hard the tasks are as well as how much stress the driver is under.

What will it do? It will improve the performance parameters by changing the tasks and the environment to create a lower stress level for the driver. It will seem like there is another human in the car making sure it is safe to change lanes, detecting speeds of cars around you, warning you if they are breaking dangerously, etc. If the system detects a high stress level it will be able to hold incoming phone calls to minimize distractions.

References 1.hhttp://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2006/0 9/ls_460_parking.html 2. qlHOJ6JSoE