What Sensor Means For The Automotive Industry

Sensors play a key role in the automotive industry. It allow for higher levels of automation in vehicles and provides a futuristic designs. For example, robotic arms with sensors are used in manufacturing units to paint car bodies and to determine the thickness of the coatings used. With cameras, manufacturers may easily track the thickness of the paint being painted on equipment, airbag cladding and different internal sections of vehicles.

Modern cars make thousands of decisions based on the data provided by different sensors that interface with the on-board computer systems of the vehicles. A car engine management system consists of a wide range of sensor devices, including engine sensors, relays, and actuators, working together. Many of these sensors operate under harsh and rough conditions involving extreme temperatures, vibrations, and exposure to contaminants from the environment. Nevertheless, these provide the electronic control unit (ECU) with critical software parameters that effectively govern the various engine functions.

"Sensors help automakers to introduce cars that are safer, more fuel-efficient and more convenient to drive. The Automotive Sensors Market was worth $22 billion and is expected to reach $37 billion by 2022, backed by a 7.5 percent CAGR"

Automotive OEMS, its manufacturing partners and governments around the world have worked diligently to develop and facilitate active safety technologies and advanced driver assistance (ADAS) systems. Designed to either improve accident prevention or reduce the severity of the crash, automotive experts are promoting ADAS as the top technology. It increases driver awareness of potential hazards, with features such as lane departure warning systems (LDWS), drowsiness detection, and night vision potentially improving reaction times.

As consumers become aware of ADAS ' increased safety, high commercial acceptance is expected to drive demand from the market for these features. ADAS has been introduced in luxury cars and higher volumes would carry cost savings as the technology matures and trickles down to mass-market vehicles. Active safety and ADAS provide the added benefit of offering important product differentiation for automotive OEMs, given that passive safety systems today are rapidly becoming standard features.

In the automotive market, there is growing receptiveness to the concept of smart sensors. It is now time for the advantages of bus connectivity, digital signal processing and fault diagnosis to start to be used. ASIC's would allow the degree of integration needed to control production costs while allowing component libraries to be easily installed on a workstation to provide the necessary flexibility.

Because of the flexibility and miniaturization, smart sensors are now integrated in nearly everything like automotive products