Slashdot Mirror
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."
I love the idea of multimedia in the car, but just one problem:
"The prototype is equipped with 7 cameras on the body and a 12-inch LCD monitor in the front"
Wouldn't this be more than a little bit distracting for the driver? I mean, what's more interesting, watching the red light change green or watching neo take the red pill?
Actually, it is a very practical car. The optical fiber used in place of wiring allows the weight of the cables to be reduced to about half of the weight of wires. Think of all the wiring that is in the typical automobile. If we can replace auto wiring with optical fiber, saving over 100 lbs in ecah car, just think of the increased fuel savings! Some of the ideas that start in concept cars end up being very useful in everyday applications.
Perhaps it's not that special, but it's interesting. I don't know if you've played around with your car's electrical system, but they can be an absolute nightmare when something goes wrong. I had all sorts of problems with my first (crappy) car, mainly stemming from a ground cable coming loose. Auto electrical systems are not a fun thing to work on. Traditional wiring can rust, connectors can break, faults in other parts of the car (especially grounding problems) can screw up totally unrelated parts of the car... I had my headlights refuse to work when I accidentally connected my car radio incorrectly, even though it worked fine etc etc etc. I've installed a lot of car radios and in older cars there is no uniform system for wire colours or even power colours. It can take longer to figure out which cables connect to which than it does to actually mount the radio and speakers...
By moving from a traditional wire loom to an optical system with a protocol like 1394 not only are you avoiding physical problems like weight and corrosion, you're also making everything much easier to troubleshoot and install.
Personally I think this is great. It's not too dissimilar to the comparison of VoIP to PSTN.
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
Even on a modern motorcycle, it can get ugly. I've had to replace the harness on a 1999 BMW motorcycle, where it weighed almost 25 pounds and required the removal of every single body panel and parts of the rear subframe to get to parts of it. It was rated as a ten hour job for a skilled mechanic.
Compare this to the wiring system on a 2005 BMW K1200S, where the wiring harness is replaced by a four wire cable that run everywhere: two wires for power and two for data. Each section of the bike, like the instrument cluster, has a box in it that reads the signal and routes the power where it needs to be. The whole system weighs 6 pounds, and a 19 pound weight savings on a motorcycle is significant.
An on-vehicle LAN solves a hell of a lot of problems, and IEEE 1394, with its prioritization protocols and huge bandwidth, is a great idea.
This is not my sandwich.