This stimulating and inspiring book explores the present and anticipates the future of Automotive Microsystems. The past decade has seen enormous progress in the use of automotive microsysems; their effect has been dramatic in reducing casualties, controlling emissions and increasing passenger comfort and vehicle performance. The book is a snapshot of new technological priorities in microsystems-based smart devices that offers a mid-term perspective on coming smart systems applications in automobiles.

From the beginnings of the International Forum on Advanced Microsystems for Automotive Application (AMAA) to the recent 11th AMAA Forum, enormous progress has been made in reducing casualties, emissions and in increasing comfort and performance. In many cases Microsystems provided key functions for this progress. This publication is a cut-out of new technological priorities in the area of microsystems-based smart devices, taking a mid-term perspective of future smart systems applications in automobiles.

The current economic crisis is cutting the automotive sector to the quick. Public authorities worldwide are now faced with requests for providing loans and accepting guarantees and even for putting large automotive companies under state control. Assessing the long-term benefits of such help and wei- ing the needs of different sectors against each other poses a major challenge for the national policies. Given the upcoming change of customer preferences and state regulations towards safety, sustainability and comfort of a car, the automotive industry is particularly called to prove its ability to make nec- sary innovations available in order to accelerate its pace to come out of the crisis. Consequently the Green Car is assuming a prominent role in the current debate. Various power train concepts are currently under discussion for the Green Car including extremely optimised internal combustion engines, hybrid drives and battery-electric traction. Electrical cars are the most appealing option because they are free of local emissions and provide the opportunity to use primary energy from sources other than crude oil for transport. Well to wheel analysis show that their green-house gas emissions can be rated negligibly small if electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar is used.

With the total number of vehicles steadily increasing and soon approaching one billion, the world is facing serious challenges in terms of both safety of road transport and sustainability. Consequently the two major persistent issues for the automotive industry are improved safety and reduced emissions. The estimated number of road fatalities is about one million per year. Fast growth of mobility in the developing world and an accelerated urbanisation pose high demands to the automotive industry. Thanks to smart systems anticipating dangerous traffic situations road fatalities will have dropped by more than 30% from 2001 to 2010. Beyond intensive stock-rearing – with 30% the major contributor to climate change – road traffic is one of the main sectors contributing to climate change: exhaust gases from vehicle engines account for about 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions. Car industry is bearing this challenge and enormous progress has been achieved particularly during the last decade.

The road vehicle of the future will embrace innovations from three major automotive technology fields: driver assistance systems, vehicle networking and alternative propulsion. Smart systems such as adaptive ICT components and MEMS devices, novel network architectures, integrated sensor systems, intelligent interfaces and functional materials form the basis of these features and permit their successful and synergetic integration. They increasingly appear to be the key enabling technologies for safe and green road mobility. For more than fifteen years the International Forum on Advanced Microsystems for Automotive Applications (AMAA) has been successful in detecting novel trends and in discussing the technological implications from early on. The topic of the AMAA 2013 will be “Smart Systems for Safe and Green Vehicles”. This book contains peer-reviewed papers written by leading engineers and researchers which all address the ongoing research and novel developments in the field. www.amaa.de

The automobile is going through the biggest transformation in its history. Automation and electrification of vehicles are expected to enable safer and cleaner mobility. The prospects and requirements of the future automobile affect innovations in major technology fields like driver assistance systems, vehicle networking and drivetrain development. Smart systems such as adaptive ICT components and MEMS devices, novel network architectures, integrated sensor systems, intelligent interfaces and functional materials form the basis of these features and permit their successful and synergetic integration. It has been the mission of the International Forum on Advanced Microsystems for Automotive Applications (AMAA) for more than fifteen years to detect novel trends and to discuss the technological implications from early on. Therefore, the topic of the AMAA 2014 will be “Smart Systems for Safe, Clean and Automated Vehicles”. This book contains peer-reviewed papers written by leading engineers and researchers which all address the ongoing research and novel developments in the field.

The automobile of the future has to meet two primary requirements: the super-efficient use of energy and power and the ultra-safe transportation of people and goods. Both features are increasingly enabled by smart, adaptive and context aware information and communication technologies (ICT), elect- cal or electronic components and systems rather than solely by the mecha- cal means of classic automotive engineering. The most advanced example of this trend is the electrified vehicle combining a full electric powertrain with completely electronic controls like smart power and energy managers, ste- by-wire technologies and intelligent networking capabilities allowing all p- viders and consumers of energy to work in efficient synergy. In the course of this year the first series production electric vehicles will finally come into the market. Automakers – unsure if electric vehicles would really sell – have long time been hesitant to make the necessary changes of their product portfolios. In the coincidence of economic crisis and growing concerns about global warming and energy security companies and public authorities jointly succeeded to overcome many obstacles on the path towards electrifi- tion.

Microsystems applications (MST) in automobiles have become commonplace: they enable the introduction of a series of new functions and at the same time the replacement of existing technologies offering improved performance and better value for money. Microsystems are indispensable for fulfilling a complete transition from the mechanically driven automobile system to a mechanically based but ICT-driven system as part of a likewise complex environment. With the introduction of micro-systems a series of challenges arise regarding complexity, systems design, reliability, serviceability, etc. These challenges have to be addressed in order to meet high customer expectations concerning performance and price.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Advanced Concepts for Intelligent Vision Systems, ACIVS 2008, held in Juan-les-Pins, France, in October 2008. The 33 revised full papers and 69 posters presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 179 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on image and video coding; systems and applications; video processing; filtering and restoration; segmentation and feature extraction; tracking, scene understanding and computer vision; medical imaging; and biometrics and surveillance.

Fundamental transformations are imminent for the automobile today: propulsion technologies are going to shift from combustion engines to electric motors; cars and roads will soon be as safe and convenient as never before; and traffic will flow increasingly efficient. Many of these advancements are due to innovative information and communication technologies, controls and smart systems, both in the vehicle and at its interfaces with the systems for power supply, mobility and data communication. The papers published in this book are selected from the submissions to the 15th International Forum on Advanced Microsystems for Automotive Applications (AMAA 2011) “Smart Systems for Electric, Safe and Networked Mobility”. They cover components, architectures and smart systems enabling the following functionalities: electric driving, safe cars and roads, and connected vehicles. Additional information is available at www.amaa.de