AutoTronics Innovation Awards 2009 Highlight Innovative Auto-electronics Products
2009/04/30 | By Quincy LiangAt this year's (fourth) Taipei International Automobile Electronics Show (AutoTronics Taipei 2009), the largest and most professional automotive electronics show in Asia as well as one of the most specialized auto-electronics sourcing platforms in the world, you can see new and innovative products from Taiwan everywhere. The show is being held on Apr. 14-17, simultaneously with the Taipei Int'l Auto Parts & Accessories Show (Taipei AMPA), one of the world's largest auto-parts exhibitions.
According to TAITRA, the AutoTronics Innovation Awards bring together many manufacturers with excellent hardware and software R&D capabilities. The award presentation was held on April 14, the opening day of the show, and the winners announced their award-winning products during the New Product Launch that afternoon. During the show period, the five award-winning products were displayed in the "AutoTronics Innovation Awards" section set up by the organizers.
The winners of the increasingly important AutoTronics Taipei Innovation Awards this year were:
| Electronic Finished Products | ||
| Company Name | Product Name | |
| Cowealth/Aspirit | Low-Pressure LED Warning Valve Cap | |
| Mobiletron Electronics Co., Ltd. | 200 Degree Camera | |
| S-MS International Co., Ltd. | Easy Look 400 | |
| Electronic Components | ||
| Company Name | Product Name | |
| Imagictek Inc. | Parking Assist ASIC (PAS100) | |
| Fujitsu Microelectronics Pacific Asia Ltd. Taiwan Branch | MediaLB MB91F467MA | |
Small Parts Make Big Contributions to Road Safety
The stability of tire pressure is crucial to the safety of vehicles, drivers, and passengers alike, but an entire tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) costs so much that consumers may be reluctant to buy it. Cowealth/Aspirit, a specialized developer and maker of tire-pressure meters and other precision instruments, is aware of the need for good gauges at low costs and so has come up with a low-pressure LED warning tire-valve cap that is light in weight, low in cost, and easy to install.
This low-pressure LED warning valve cap is a small part that makes a big contribution to road safety. With a very small size, similar to that of a soda-bottle cap, each LED valve cap weighs only about 10 grams and can be installed on the standard tire valves of automobiles, motorcycles, and bicycles. Just replace the old cap with this innovative one and screw on the unique anti-theft nut that comes with the set. When the tire pressure falls under the designated level by 15%, the LED light will flash for as long as 15 days. By just glancing at the valve cap before getting in or leaving their vehicles, drivers or riders will see immediately if their tire pressure is okay.
Mobiletron Delivers New Vision
Safety-minded drivers need to stay on top of more information than tire pressure if they hope to have enough time to react to impending accidents that can happen at any second. Mobiletron Electronics Co., a major Taiwanese automotive-electronics firm, has developed a new way to do that.
Automotive cameras have been widely used to assist reversing, prevent lateral collisions, monitor lanes, and fill in blind spots. Due to viewing angle limitations, however, designers have long been unable to cut down on the number of cameras installed or to fill in the blind spots of large trucks. Mobiletron improves this situation with its 200-degree wide-angle automotive camera, which won the Innovation Award for 2009. The wide angle of view is delivered with a TV distortion of less than 35% and an MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) of 84 lp/mm.
If you don't want to install cameras on your vehicle but still want to do something to improve the problem of blind spots in rear-view mirrors, S-MS International Co. has an award-winning product to help you.
The EasyLook 400 is an innovative system that can effectively eliminate blind-spot zones in your side mirrors. The product is designed under a simple but innovative principle: a turn-signal lever that acts as control bar with which the driver can move the rear-view mirrors to the left or right. The mirrors move out to provide a larger viewing angle, and return to the normal position when the turn-signal switch is turned off.
The product also offers a very convenient function that was previously seen only on luxury cars: when the driver puts the car into reverse, the rear-view mirrors automatically skew toward the ground. Not content to just warn the driver, this device actually does away with the blind spots that rear-view mirrors can suffer. EasyLook helps a driver back a car into a garage, park it in a tight roadside space, change lanes, or make a right or left turn. Easylook lets drivers know if there are cars coming up in the rear or if there are obstacles behind the back bumper. This easy-to-install accessory uses wireless signal transmission and is capable of returning mirrors to the pre-configured position, marking a big advancement in driving safety.
As active safety technologies have evolved, automotive parking assist systems (PAS) have grown from plain-vanilla rear-view mirrors into sophisticated parking guidance systems.
ImagicTek Inc., for example, showcased at AutoTronics Taipei 2009 a self-developed reversing path guidance image processing chip with parameters that can be reset to fit individual users. Through Digital Signal Processor (DSP) calculations and image-processing technologies, this product can provide real-time image output of a car-width extension line, distance line, and reversing path line with an amazing accuracy of 99.5%.
The chip has built-in software such as a rudder-angle sensor data retrieval system, image decoder system, and Windows-based user management software, all to provide an all-around system solution. ImagicTek pointed out that this parking-aid system solution has what it takes to compete on the international level. And customization service is available for clients in the aftermarket, in the automobile assembly industry, and from carmakers who request ODM (original design manufacturer) partnerships. This is a product that keeps drivers from danger while giving them the feeling of driving a luxury model.
Media Oriented Systems Transport (MOST) is the industrial standard for vehicle multi-media networking developed by major auto makers in Europe. Unlike the Controller Area Network (CAN) standard, MOST offers the high-speed broadband transmission of audio/video content and data at a speed of 10-100Mbps. Thanks to a circular topological structure, vehicle safety will be ensured even if MOST transmission stops.
To get ready for the emergence of MOST as the mainstream standard, Fujitsu Microelectronics has launched a full-fledged MediaLB (the standard for chips that connect MOST networking integrated circuits) controller chip that can act as a MOST-CAN gateway and support multi-audio streaming transmission. The chip, coded MB91F467MA, features a working clock rate of 80MHz, a built-in flash memory of 1Mb, and an RAM of 64Kb, providing everything it needs to act as the interface of choice for the whole gamut of car-mounted entertainment systems.
