Re: APUs

On Sun, 14 May 2006 18:40:47 -0600, nasty milo <nstymilo@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

<hundreds of quoted lines snipped>

A little help here John,
What is VORAD?

A trademark? An Acronym? Dunno. The system is a radar-based
collision avoidance system that warns the driver when he's too close
to another vehicle to be able to stop safely.

What is CAN bus?

It's like DVD; it started out as an acronym but now designates a
technology. Originally "Car Area Bus" a local area network for cars.
It's now being shoved into all sorts of non-car applications such as
in semi trucks so the "car" part isn't accurate anymore. Anyway, it's
a method for various systems and parts on a vehicle to talk with each
other and with the outside world.

The goal is to have one or a few loops of wire running around the
vehicle with each device multi-dropped off the bus. A CAN-enabled
brake light switch would put a message on the bus telling the
CAN-enabled tail lights to come on. The idea is to get rid of as much
copper wiring as possible.

That sort of integration is still several years away but CANbus is now
being used by many cars and trucks to communicate among the major
systems (PCM, ABS, stability control, collision avoidance, the
diagnostic port, etc.). As with most other modern technologies
dirt-cheap silicon is driving the roll-out. It won't be long until
the silicon is cheap enough to put a chip in each lamp socket or even
in each lamp.

There is another technology that several trucking companies are
testing that involves similar technology. It is known as terrain
adaptive power control among other names. This system uses GPS and a
topo map database to control the maximum amount of power available
from a truck's engine, depending on where it is. The idea behind this
is that better fuel economy and engine life can be achieved if the
power is limited to just what is necessary to get the job done.

I think that this is a great idea, at least until the companies try to
misuse it to control the driver's speed.

John
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
Don't let your schooling interfere with your education-Mark Twain
.

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