标签: automotive

All of us are susceptible to attention lapses, and they can range from minor annoyances like losing your focus on a book you are reading to making mistakes in figures you are adding or forgetting that you left a pot boiling on the stove until you smell something burning.   But attention lapses while driving a car are always dangerous, and are becoming more so now in vehicles equipped with infotainment systems with multiple displays.   Much of what the driver sees in these displays is categorized as “driver aids”. They include maps for navigation, automobile engine status, weather information, distance to destination, and a camera view of the road behind you. Sometimes there is a cellphone built in, adding yet another display, or an attachment that projects a smartphone display in a vehicle's front window so you can drive and check your email at the same time. But few of them help you to keep your attention where it should be: driving and traffic conditions.And all it takes is a few seconds and sometimes much less to find yourself in trouble. Think about it: An automobile weighing anywhere from 700 to 1,200 pounds at a minimum, traveling at 60 miles an hour translates into 80 feet/second. Even on a lightly traveled freeway most cars travel closer to the car ahead than that 80 feet. And vehicles in the next lane are only a matter of five to ten feet away. Not a lot of room to avoid serious problems in the second or two (and often much less) that you have to take action.   That there have not been more vehicle deaths and serious injuries associated with such “improvements” I think is due mainly to the strengthening of the vehicle frame and the electronics built into the engine and auto body framework.   Better late than never, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2010 initiated a program to take a closer look at the problem of distracted driving. One of the results was a set of guidelines in 2013 with recommendations to follow, including: - The distraction induced by any secondary task performed while driving should not exceed that associated with a baseline reference task such as manual radio tuning. - Any task performed by a driver should be interruptible at any time. - The driver, not the system/device, should control the pace of task interactions - Displays should be easy for the driver to see and content presented should be easily discernible   Risk factors due to information overload in modern automotive infotainment subsystems. (Source: U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA))   But even these relatively modest recommendations are unevenly deployed, and where followed are open to broad interpretation.   The NHTSA also recommended that tasks/devices not suitable for use while driving should be locked out from the driver's control, including device functions and tasks not intended to be used by a driver while driving, such as manual text entry and smartphone and network activities such as texting, chatting, and internet browsing; displaying video and images, and scrolling text. It also recommended locking out the display of books and social media content.   However, on the various business trips where I have used rental cars, I have not seen any cars with the sort of “lock-outs" talked about in the report. And therein lies one of the weaknesses of the recommendations: they do not have the force of law. Another is how little attention is paid to our ability to do multitasking and task-switching in an automotive environment.   Eyes on the road We humans are good at multitasking, which is the ability to handle a mix of unrelated actions at the same time. When you eat your dinner while simultaneously carrying on a conversation and listening to music in the background, you are multitasking.   But we are terrible at task-switching. This occurs when you redirect your attention and cognitive energies from one task that requires total attention to another unrelated task that also requires total or near-total attention. When you are driving and shift your attention to the infotainment navigation display, you are less able to notice and react to changes in traffic: a stoppage of traffic ahead, a pedestrian stepping into the street, or a car that switches lanes in front of you.   One cognitive researcher who has looked hard and long at switch-tasking in particular is Clifford Nass of Stanford University , initially in the context of mobile phone users, particularly teenagers . He found that a majority of teens are routinely using three or more media at one time, even while driving a vehicle.   Nass found that as a result of such switch-tasking they had profound problems related to the ability to filter information, manage working memory, and difficulties in switching from one task to another. Each of these deficits had enormous implications for mobile phone users when driving under both normal and complex circumstances.   Concerned about the proliferation of electronic devices to distract drivers, Nass recently started a lab at Stanford that focuses on how the information environment in the car can lead to a series of “attractive nuisances” that undermine driving performance. This includes not only the entertainment systems, but the warning systems, navigation systems, and other aids and how those varying tasks and sources of content are managed or mismanaged by drivers.   It will be interesting to see what the lab comes up with. From my personal perspective, these things are not being managed very well, either by the drivers or the auto makers who continue to ignore even the NTSA's modest recommendations. Until more research emerges and more common sense is applied by manufacturers, I have taken a minimalist approach.   I own an old car that has no infotainment aids, forcing me to keep my eyes on the road and my mind on driving. It might not be as much fun as driving with an infotainment system installed, but I have much more confidence that I’ll get where I’m going in one piece.

很好的一篇关于汽车级LDO使用的应用笔记。 Infineon出品。

  A Quick Glimpse at the Automotive Linux Summit 2012 September 19 and 20, 2012 at HERITAGE MOTOR CENTRE, GAYDON, WARWICK, UNITED KINGDOM The Linux Foundation had organized the Automotive Linux Summit 2012 in September this year. I had a good chance to participate in this event and get quality exposure listening to some great speakers from the Industry across the world.  The schedule was packed over two days with some very interesting speakers and participants. Leaders spoke of the importance of Linux in the Automotive Roadmap and the worthiness of adapting to Linux based solutions, its benefits over long run etc. There were also some good sessions throwing light on the importance of open innovation and the need for open source software in designs. Sessions on relatively latest technologies like Connected Car Concept, Intelligent Road Building were too impressive. The summit also touched upon something very important on the Anvil – “Android”. The trends  of Android based IVI systems and the direction where it is poised to cruise in technology space were also discussed. I had the privilege to represent Mistral’s Automotive and Infotainment team and present a session on Multimedia Stacks and Integration in Linux Environment and how to build an IVI system. There were also a few interesting sessions for hobbyists and amateurs to help them take Linux more effectively. Tips on board bring ups and tools choice were popular in this segment of the audience. One session literally took me off the ground – it was about how exactly Linux Kernels are managed worldwide and the responsibilities of key members within that group. It is amazing to see how thousands of files, millions of code lines and several people within the Kernel Network manage.  End of the day – the Kernel Maintenance team does it with such precision! Intel showcased their cluster with driver control demonstration, which was pretty impressive. It consists of a seat and wheel with control pedals as a part of the demonstrator setup. You would actually get to see how things work as you slam the accelerator pedal or the brake pedal. It will surely be an injustice done to the venue, if I refrain from telling you about it. Warwick is about 100 miles away from North West of London City. It is a small town (so to say) with only two landmark occupants. One is the Land Rover Unit. I was also told that Mr. Ratan Tata frequents this unit quite often. Other is the venue of the Automotive Linux Summit – that the “Heritage Motor Centre”. The Heritage Motor Centre houses some of the most premium collections of vintage cars across the world. Guess you would need at least 8 hours to quickly scan the cars lined up in their basement hall. They have an amazing collection including Famous Firsts, Unique proto cars, Sports Cars etc. Having walked through this hall displaying over 300 cars, I realized why this place is considered to be the Mecca for Car enthusiasts.  It gives one a great exposure to British contribution in Automotive Industry, over the centuries.  Personally I have never been to any vintage car collection all my life. I know about sparkling wine – but sparkling cars were something I saw for the first time.  First thing I did after I got back was to pick up a 3M Wax Polish for my vintage (as its 7 year old now) car! Some pictures from HMC’s wonderful collection of sparkling cars! A 1965 MGB sectioned into two halves for display – this was done at British Motor Show 1965                                        A 1935 single seater Austin Racer Car, 70 BHP which touched 100 mph   A 1938 Issigonis Light Weight Special 100 BHP race car     A 1923, 54 passenger OmniBus                                  1923 Bypass Car     and that’s me!!   - M R Raghavan  

As one of my full time job responsibilities, selling modeling products, I often encounter a very interesting question. Is the model cycle accurate ? Does it 100% reproduce the behavior of the actual target. Designers often think that this as a very important question. For years, my standard response has been "Teraptor Player CA is cycle aware", accuracy of the system can be made to be as close to the actual system as required.  However, in a recent meeting, my response was spontaneously different, and it was actually a question,  and therein I realized lies an important warning for software developers, especially those creating software for aerospace or automotive applications. Well, that question is -- what is the target system or board behavior ? Does it exhibit the same behavior every time ? Do multiple identical boards all exhbit the same behavior with respect to time ?  Any one who administers a network knows it takes some effort to keep all the systems synchronized with respect to time.  The reality is that there is almost no such thing as a "standard temporal behavior" of a target system. It changes with temperature, pressure, aging, battery voltage and yes, even the history of temperature changes. In other words, a perfectly working automotive software application in the lab, may experience "timing related failures" when being driven out there in the middle of a desert, hot or icy, 10 years after it was manufactured. Modeling time then becomes very important, not just in terms of making it accurate when compared to the real target, but in terms of being able to make it inaccurate -- vary the relative logical  time between the components, so that they are in fact closer or farther away from the "real target". Testing software with different timing models  ensures that the software operates as designed on different hardware platforms - and makes it independent of the underyling hardware platform, temporally speaking.