TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS AND KEY TECHNOLOGIES IN INTELLIGENT VEHICLES

The technical trends of intelligent vehicles are discussed basing on t he progress of technology of microelectronics, sensing and information processing. The concept of intelligent vehicles has started when the installation of computers on vehicles became possible in 1970s. The fu nctions of computerized cars increased gradually with the progress of technology of microelectronics, sensing and information processing res ponding to the demands of the society. The first issues we had to chal lenge with the capability of electronic systems were the environmental and the energy resources problems. The R & D works of these purposes created many sophisticated computer control systems. Moreover, these w orks established the base of intelligent vehicles that contains variou s functions for drivability, safety, and information communications. O n the other hand, many kinds of information and communication technolo gy became useful to solve the issues on automobiles through infrastruc ture systems. United States, Europe, and Japan have started their own projects to realize such hierarchy management systems for traffic and vehicles. From the viewpoint of vehicle itself, it is the indispensabl e conditions and directions to implement the computer and telecommunic ations functions to the vehicles to establish clean, comfort, convenie nt, efficient and safe automobiles toward the next century.