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Nissan Exhibits IEEE 1394-Compatible Car
Dirak writes "High-speed IEEE 1394 optical fiber networks have gone off-road with new Nissan's prototype vehicle demonstrated this year's at 11th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems. The prototype is equipped with 7 cameras on the body and a 12-inch LCD monitor in the front and another in the rear seat area. Thanks to the in-vehicle IEEE 1394 LAN, which is capable of high-speed communications at 400Mbps via optical cable, the front and the rear seat monitors can display various information simultaneously, for example. The application of optical fiber also means that the weight of the cables can be reduced to about one-half the weight of a conventional wiring harness."
Wow, they're bragging up the reduction of weight of a wiring harness in a car. That's just awesome. Holy crap don't want to go over GVWR in the Nissan with a copper cabling system. Pardon me while I go shopping for light weight optical camping gear as not to kill my gas milage.
The last time I checked optical cabling like niether virbration or dirt. So is this really a great application? BTW 1394... WHY? it makes some sense but seems slightly random as well.
What could possibly go wrong?
FirewWire is trademarked by Apple.
Were that I say, pancakes?
FirewWire is trademarked by Apple.
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And Apple licensed it to the 1394 Trade Association in May 2002:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/may/29firewi
- proton
http://www.dansdata.com/drivedocks.htm claims up to 60W can be pulled over firewire.
Morphing Software
Actually it *is* a big leap forward in automotive electronics. Sure, fiber optics and serial transfer rates of 400Mbps is nothing new. But the PC and server markets usually adopt the latest and best technologies first. While other markets are subject to a "trickle" effect, adopting these technologies much more slowly.
I can't say for foreign (non U.S. vehicles) but most domestic vehicles have network communication speeds of less than a hundred kilobits/second. The reality is, there is more than one computer in most vehicles and they do not run on the same network. Almost always running on different networks at different speeds and protocols.
Multiple networks in an automobile is necessary due to current lack of bandwidth. It is unacceptable to have the steering wheel controls and OnStar chatter clogging the OBD II diagnostics. Things like sensors for collisions need to be able to trigger the airbags in time. A congested bus is no good for that. Only in recent years has effort been made to have faster, standardized, serial and unified networks in domestic automobiles.
CAN, (car-area-network) is one of those technologies yet still much much slower than 1394. And such technologies as CAN have only shown up in recent years of domestic production vehicles.
With the amount of bandwidth 1394 (let alone the standardization, oh wonderful standardization!) many more things are possible. Since everything would run off the same network, "theoretically" it would be cheaper to produce a car. Less wiring due to a serial network and less development for multiple protocols and isolated networks. (Though this savings will likely *not* be passed on to the customer.)
This has huge implications for 3rd party development as well. Since a standardized physical layer is a big step, it will be easier to develop for the network. If you have ever installed a car stereo you know it's a pain in the ass and different for almost every vehicle.
Imagine taking your head unit, plugging into 1394 and that's it. In this scenario the speaker system is also digital and also apart of the network - installation would be a breeze. Other things could happen, like your iPod communicating with your head unit. No longer will the BMW drivers feel they are superior. (Except they will still have a better car than most) In addition, all the fancy LCD screens on head units today could give you real time OBD information.
Some cars have a sensor for when your gas cap is open but only show the "check engine light" or something similar. Well your stereo head unit could read these messages off the network and actually display in text "Gas cap is open stupid."
I think this is great news. Other auto manufactures wanting to stay competitive (or merge) will follow suit. Things can only get better.
I for one welcome our new high-bandwidth automobile network overlords.
It's actually kinda interesting where SCSI is turning up these days. FireWire; Fibre Channel; ... it's no longer just the old parallel protocol from days gone by. Says something about the design of the command set, it does.
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Twenty times as far
FireWire 400 delivers data over cables of up to 4.5 metres in length. Using professional-grade glass optical fibre, FireWire 800 can burst data across 100 metre cables.
Expensive european cars such as the higher models of BMW, Benz, Audi already have indicators of what is exactly broken, instead of the simple Check Engine Light. Decent code readers cost around $120. However, AutoZone rent them out for free.