An Automated Future, First, Bendix Says
Bendix says the driver remain key in increasingly automated vehicle systems for a long time to come. Photo: Bendix
“>
Bendix says the driver remain key in increasingly automated vehicle systems for a long time to come. Photo: Bendix
“>
Fifteen years ago, Bendix executives and engineers sat down to hash out the company’s electronics strategy for foreseeable future. At the time, the focus was on the just-emerging field of electronic safety systems, based largely on Bendix’s still-new anti-lock braking systems and brand-new anti-rollover technology.
“We had no idea where that path was going to lead us,” company Bendix chairman and executive board member Joe McAleese says with a laugh.
I’m sitting with McAleese and Fred Andersky, who’s job title names him as Bendix’s director, customer solutions and government relations. But in reality, he’s the company’s Future Tech Wizard, playing an integral role in the development of Bendix’s current vehicle technology while trying to peer into the crystal ball and figure out how the next phases of automotive tech — namely autonomous vehicles — will play out.
And the most interesting aspect of all this is that, increasingly, it’s the integration of electronic vehicle systems like Bendix’s Wingman active cruise/safety system that finds itself at the core of autonomous vehicle development efforts. “When we first put our electronics platform together 15 years ago,’ McAleese says now, we knew we would build new functions onto them as they went forward. And we knew there would be some degree of integration. But, even so, we never envisioned anything on the scale we’re seeing today.”
All that said, you’d think Bendix is chomping at the bit to race forward into a bright, new, autonomous future. But the truth is Bendix is one of the more conservative technology companies today when it comes to autonomous vehicle prognostication. They decline to put an actual number on when we’ll see fully-autonomous, Level 5 cars and trucks in everyday use. But both of …Read the rest of this story
Source:: http://www.truckinginfo.com/blog/truck-tech/story/2017/03/an-automated-future-first-bendix-says.aspx