GPS could play a vital role in accident prevention.

If you’re an auto enthusiast like me, one of the interesting parts of viewing a movie or TV show set in the distant future is checking out what kind of cars people of the future drive. I’m not talking about the Ford Taurus that was featured in RoboCop, but rather the seemingly self-guided cars seen in Minority Report, for example.

Oddly enough, we may soon see autos equipped with a self-guided feature of a sort that will help drivers to avoid accidents. A new joint venture between Ford and Auburn University may be the beginning of a new era of driving.

Using GPS To Its Fullest

Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) are constantly orbiting Earth and feeding information to those who have GPS capable hardware about their whereabouts and where they could possibly go, but GPS is evolving into something much different. It is slowly turning into a means of providing for our safety in conjunction with technology that could be found on every auto in future. What Ford and Auburn have proven thus far in their research is that GPS can be used to communicate with autos with the proper equipment to avoid an accident. In other words, your auto will be in constant communication with satellites orbiting miles upon miles up in space in the near future.

Constant Communication And Safety: How It Works

Many readers probably have an auto that comes equipped with GPS from the factory and can be utilized via a touch screen that shows you where you are and where to go, but in the future, the GPS feed going to that touch screen may also be interconnected with your auto’s stability control system. A current example of stability control is traction control, which essentially is an electronic system that helps the wheels of your auto stay in constant contact with the ground in order to keep you from losing control of your auto. Ford and Auburn University have found out how to use sensors already present on your auto to communicate with GPS, which is used to track the inertial movements of your auto to keep your wheels firmly planted on a driving surface.

The Technical Skinny

How is this done then? If you want the technical explanation, saddle up. If you remember math class from high school, you probably remember algorithms. In order to not turn this into a boring math class, an algorithm is a sequence of instructions or to put it simply, it’s kind of like solving a Rubik’s cube. In the case of preventing accidents, algorithms are generated from the data that sensors onboard an auto have collected (i.e. have the sensors detected that traction is at a premium due to snowy conditions?) and from your auto’s GPS information (i.e. how fast you are going or if you are turning). In turn, these algorithms lead to predictive models (think weather forecasting) that have the ability to calculate an auto’s roll angle, sideslip and velocity depending on the given driving conditions.

The simple explanation is better served by an example. Say that you are driving along on a snow-covered road in the midst of a fairly intense snowstorm and you realize that you have to make a turn. Due to the poor visibility, this is a rather sudden turn, but your auto doesn’t turn and keeps on skidding straight ahead, potentially into an intersection. If this new technology were installed on your auto and you had your GPS on to guide you, the satellites above could communicate this to the sensors on your auto, which in turn will send a signal to the stability control system to increase traction via traction control, apply the brakes in a manner that will not make the auto lose control and allow you turn without incident.

In The Meantime

It will probably be at least a few years before we see this kind of technology on any auto, much less Ford’s, but it is a promising new development that has the potential to save countless lives. Until then and even when the technology arrives, the best way to avoid an accident is to stay alert and drive appropriately for the conditions.

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