• Engineering

    Highway Patrol Car of the Future

    The 9th annual Los Angeles Auto Show Design Competition is calling auto and tech designers to build a car around a central theme: The Highway Patrol Car of the Future – 2025. Global manufacturer design studios compete while exploring new design boundaries for the auto industry. The winner will be presented on November 29th at the LA Auto Show Press Days, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Way of the Future As the economy changes and urban development progresses it is essential that all important aspects of society evolve with it—the guiding influence behind including law enforcement in this year’s design challenge. Industrial designers shape the world we live in, from commercial…

  • Engineering

    The Future of the Automotive Industry

    A survey conducted in the UK has revealed that 65% of motorists are planning on buying a more environmentally friendly vehicle the next time they are looking to purchase a brand new car. The majority of respondents blamed rising fuel prices for this decision; with a further 5% of stating that they had been forced off the road altogether.

  • Space Exploration

    Non-Rocket Spacelaunch – Advantages and Difficulties of a Launch Loop

    Unlike conventional rockets, launch loops can have many launches per hour, independent of weather, and are not inherently polluting. Rockets create pollution such as nitrates in their exhausts due to high exhaust temperature, and can also create greenhouse gases depending on propellant choices. Launch loops require power in the form of electricity and as such it can be clean.

  • Engineering

    Future car technologies – Advanced control

    This is the final part of the Future Car Technologies series of articles. In order to make highways safer, it has been proposed that future cars should be grouped into platoons of eight to twenty-five cars and drive as one following each other at a distance of about a meter. They would all be controlled by an artificial intelligence or a lead driver (which ideally would be the most experienced of the whole group). Such a grouping would greatly increasing the capacity of roads. Brief assessment of the technology Such a technology might require buying new cars, or it may be something that can be retrofitted. Drivers would probably need…