SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3196
Tesla's latest wiring patent application: Things get faster and more redundant - Roadshow
Having an electronic component on your car break is generally pretty damned annoying. Not only do you have a nonfunctioning feature on your vehicle, but you have to either spend way too much time diagnosing the problem yourself or paying someone else to do it.
That problem becomes more severe if your car is driving itself and something happens to, say, one of its sensors. Current automotive wiring architectures don't really have provisions for redundancy, and the way that most manufacturers construct their wiring harnesses is pretty complicated.
Tesla thinks it's found a new way to do things with more redundancy without dramatically increasing complexity and has filed a patent application to prove it. What's even cooler is that Tesla's system would also boost the speed at which data is transferred throughout the vehicle, in theory at least, according to a report published Monday by Electrek.
[...] This isn't the first wiring architecture patent application that we've seen from the Big T recently. It filed an application earlier this year for a more modular wiring system that would simplify vehicle construction by using more modular subharnesses -- for example a wiring harness for all the components of a door with one connector going to the main body harness, rather than a bunch of discrete connectors.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:21PM (4 children)
In commercial aviation you have multiple display panels strung out between the pilot and copilot. If one fails, you can switch modes to cover any function you need on the remaining panels. In Tesla, because there's only one panel, even with nothing failed, you have to mode select to see undisplayed functions instead of merely glancing at another panel.
The Tesla single display concept with no cabin controls that can be operated in the blind has always seemed like a really bad idea-- even before you consider redundancy.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 28 2019, @03:01PM (2 children)
Well, I rarely operate my land vehicles IFR, and I can almost always bring them in for a safe landing with a completely dark cockpit... But, with auto-pilot, they are starting to blur the lines a bit.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday August 28 2019, @05:09PM (1 child)
Never heard of operating a land vehicle IFR, but have heard of operating a land vehicle with one eye closed. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @06:57PM
You obviously don't live up north. Whenever we have a blizzard or fog around here, there are still people out on the roads. Visibility can literally be less than 10 feet and there are still people out on the road. Oh, and in the ditches, because those are magically lined with cars the next day.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 29 2019, @12:11AM
I have been looking into Android-bluetooth-WIFI-Arduino bridges to repurpose old cellphones as HMI displays, thinking if I did have any of my dash fail, I could log on with an Android phone, go to a specific 192.168. xxx.xxx to replicate the function of the failed part or display.
I have this old diesel van I have hopes of making a hybrid ancient tech innards with "back to the future" dash. Of course, it's all for show.. it still runs if two wires are connected together. But you don't get the show...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]