Aerospace industry materials and components have, for a long time, made their way to the automotive world, most prominently in racing; but this is fresh…
Mitsubishi might not be Japan’s biggest automaker, but it is a huge industry engaged in lots of activities, from air conditioners to… missiles – which in this case, is the operative word.
That’s because it plans to use technology already developed for fighter jet missiles guidance systems and make it suitable for use in its future autonomous cars.
“All we have to do is to put together the components that we already have,” chief engineer at Mitsubishi’s automotive equipment division Katsumi Adachi explained in an interview. Said parts include millimeter-wave radar, sensors, cameras and sonars and they will be modified to accelerate the development and cut costs of automatic braking and lane keeping systems that’ll be used in autonomous cars by 2020.
The plan is to combine the sensing technology with its satellite system (yes, they do make these, too) to send up-to-date location data to vehicles, which will made easier by the three new sats Mitsubishi will put into geosynchronous orbit over Japan by 2018 to gather more data.
In spite of initiating its own program just two years ago, Adachi is adamant it won't be playing catch up as “none of our competitors have such a wide array of capabilities.” He conceded, though, that it won’t be an easy task: “At this point, we still have a lot of challenges. There’s a long way to go.”
Note: Mitsubishi eX Concept pictured