Hasta La Ideas

A car that drives itself through traffic jams and does the parking for you was showcased alongside shape-shifting OLED headlights by German car brand Audi at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Above: banks of LED headlights and indicators

Audi also unveiled electronics systems to integrate the car with services such as Google Maps and Google Earth View as well as social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Piloted driving will soon allow drivers to let the car take control when stuck in a traffic jam, Audi engineers believe.

Above: OLED technology creates a continuous light surface

The self-driving technology will be able to stop and start the vehicle in slow-moving traffic, as well as manoeuvring it in and out of parking spaces.

Cars could also be networked to alert each other to hazards such as icy roads or heavy traffic, Audi suggests, while communication with traffic lights would enable the vehicle to drive itself through green lights.

LED headlights are already available in many car models, but at CES 2013 Audi unveiled its Matrix LED system, which uses a camera to detect the road and vehicles ahead so that it can swivel its headlights or lower the intensity of the beam when needed.

Above: LED headlights that can bend and swivel

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology would also turn the car’s rear into a continuous light surface with many tiny points moving together like a shoal of fish. The lights would flow to the right when the car turns right or flow rapidly forwards when it brakes, for example.

Last month Dezeen filmed a movie that showed how glowing walls, windows and furniture made from OLEDs could replace light bulbs and LEDs in homes.

We also recently reported that Audi is bringing its interior and exterior design studios together as part of its new design strategy.

Above: a customisable virtual display

We’ve also featured an ultra-lightweight chair developed in collaboration with Audi and a huge sculpture created for the car brand at a motoring festival – see all our stories about Audi »

Above: smartphone integration for maps and satellite views

See all our stories about OLEDs »
See all our stories about cars »
See all our stories about transport »

Above: smartphone integration

Here’s more information from Audi:

Audi at the CES 2013

“Electronics trends over the next decade” will be the banner for Audi’s presence at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which will be held in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11, 2013. At the world’s most important electronics trade show, the brand is presenting its technologies of today and its solutions for tomorrow. The spotlight will be on networking the car with its environment – with a particular focus on future piloted driving and mobile communications.

Audi will be showcasing a wide range of assistance systems already on offer that make driving more comfortable and safer. These assistance systems are closely integrated, providing them with a high degree of intelligence and outstanding capabilities. Tomorrow’s systems will be even smarter – they will reduce the driver’s workload should the driver so wish.

Piloted driving will be technical feasible before the decade is out – Audi will be showcasing what being caught up in a traffic jam will entail in future. In congested traffic at speeds up to 60 km/h (37.28 mph), Audi’s piloted driving helps the driver to steer the car within certain limits. It also accelerates and brakes the vehicle autonomously. In future, piloted driving will also be able to maneuver the vehicle autonomously into and out of parking spaces – such as in tight roadside parking spaces, in garages, or even in parking garages.

“At Audi you’d be hard pushed to find an innovation that isn’t related to electronics nowadays,” explains Ricky Hudi, Head of Electrics/Electronics Development. “These enable us to implement full networking. A defining feature of the last decade was that we integrated all the functions in the car. This decade will see us network the car seamlessly with the environment, under the Audi connect banner – with the driver, the Internet, the infrastructure, and with other vehicles.”

Audi connect services and technologies bring the Internet into the car and the car onto the Internet. For customers the new technology means greater comfort and greater driving pleasure. The new wireless communication standard Long Term Evolution (LTE) will soon support communications with the World Wide Web, opening up the possibility of high-speed transmission of large amounts of data.

Audi connect provides the driver with tailor-made services, ranging from navigation with Google Earth images and Google Maps Street View, through Audi online traffic information and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. In the new Audi A3 and in the Audi A3 Sportback the driver can have e-mails read aloud and dictate (SMS) text messages. Audi intends to expand this range of services further.

Audi is working flat out on new operating and display concepts – concepts like the freely programmable instrument cluster. The driver can switch around the virtual displays to suit their own requirements. Visually they are barely distinguishable from the physical instruments, but provide much more flexibility.

The brand also has new technology for hi-fi aficionados – 3-D sound brings a three-dimensional, large acoustic stage to in-car music playback. This inspirational technology can be experienced in the “Audi Q7 sound concept” directly in the vehicle and on the booth.

The architecture of the modular infotainment platform enables for the first time hardware components to be kept constantly up to date with minimal effort.

For many years Audi has been a leading brand in terms of lighting technology – at present LED headlights are available in many model series. Electrics/electronics also pave the way for major development advances in this technology area. The lighting on tomorrow’s Audi models will react actively to environmental conditions, thus increasing active safety further.

Audi has developed a broad spectrum of expertise in all areas of vehicle electronics, thus enabling it to explore new ways of co-operating with its suppliers. As part of the Progressive Semi Conductor Program (PSCP) seven semiconductor manufacturers have acquired the status of strategic partners and are therefore integrated into development.

“In all our technical areas the innovation cycles are short, and the competition is cut-throat,” says Ricky Hudi, Head of Electrics/Electronics Development. “At Audi we see that as an obligation to become even more progressive, more agile, and more innovative.”

The post Driverless cars and OLED headlights
by Audi at CES 2013 appeared first on Dezeen.

Design Miami: design duo Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram have used technology from the car-racing industry to develop a chair made by robots that weighs just 2.2 kilograms (+ movie).

Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram worked with experts at Audi’s Lightweight Design Centre to produce the R18 Ultra, a chair named after and inspired by Audi’s ultra lightweight prototype race car.

“We started using technology that you find in [the R18 Ultra] car and translated it into a piece of furniture, which is quite exciting because we got access to technology the furniture industry can’t even dream of,” Weisshaar told Dezeen at Design Miami.

Earlier this year Dezeen reported on the public beta testing for the R18 Ultra, where hundreds of visitors to the Milan furniture fair sat on the chair while it was hooked up to advanced stress-analysis sensors.

“It’s a process somewhat borrowed from the testing and development of a racecar,” said Kram. “Sitting is a very dynamic activity, weirdly, and everybody uses the chair differently,” added Weisshaar. “So simply putting weight on it and doing static load tests doesn’t get you anywhere. You actually need people to engage with it.”

Using data from the public beta testing, the designers worked out where they could trim off unnecessary weight from the carbon-fibre shell. “The nature of composite is it’s always a layering process,” said Weisshaar.”That also allows you to just take off layers where you don’t need the material.

“It’s completely different from any subtractive manufacturing or moulding, where you have a continuous wall thickness and continuous materiality. Here, not only can you manipulate the wall thickness, you can also manipulate the materiality.”

The legs of the chair are cut out from flat sheets of aluminium and then put together using the same cold metal transfer technology that Audi uses to make cars.

“They’re mass production techniques,” said Weisshaar, “but there are even more exciting mass production techniques in the making in the labs, which we couldn’t use because they’re totally locked away and top secret. So what we’re showing here is what’s happening tomorrow – but what’s happening the day after tomorrow is even more exciting.”

In 2010 Kram and Weisshaar worked with Audi to install eight robotic arms in London’s Trafalgar Square, where they spelled out messages in mid-air.

Dezeen was in Miami last week reporting on all the highlights of the Design Miami collectors fair, including the sausage-shaped inflatables around the fair’s entrance, an “ice halo” of Swarovski crystals and an installation of perfect natural curves inspired by the art nouveau history of a champagne maker – see all our stories about Design Miami.

See all our stories about Kram and Weisshaar »
See all our stories about chairs »

Here’s some more information from the designer:

R18 Ultra Chair
designed by by Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram
for Audi

December 5-9, 2012
Design Miami/
Miami Beach, FL, USA

Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram have developed a chair using methods borrowed from the future of automotive manufacturing in collaboration with Audi’s Lightweight Design Center. The chair’s multi-material space frame is made from carbon composites, carbon micro-sandwich and high strength aluminum and weighs only 2.2 kg or 77 ounces. The chair embodies Audi’s ultra lightweight design credo completely by following strict guidelines to shave off every ounce of excess weight.

The R18 Ultra Chair’s genesis incorporates crowd-sourced data acquired through thousands of testing sessions held in Milan during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in April 2012. Using advanced physics simulation software, the big data set enabled designers and engineers to analyze a wide variety of load scenarios and carefully adjust and optimize the carbon fiber lay up, geometry and dimensions of the final object accordingly.

At Design Miami/ the chair’s designers and engineers are giving visitors an intimate insight into their studios and labs, displaying drawings, samples, models, mock-ups, moulds and prototypes from the various stages of the development process. This includes an industrial welding robot and the chair’s namesake and inspiration, the R18 Ultra – the pace car for an entire technology: Audi ultra.

Audi ultra stands for state of the art lightweight construction, technology and design aimed at streamlining and optimizing efficiency across the board. This begins with the raw materials sourced for production all the way through various manufacturing stages, the operation of the vehicle, its fuel consumption and its deconstruction and recyclability at the end of its life cycle.

Aluminum is a key material in Audi’s repertoire of lightweight design technologies: The chair’s legs are made of folded sheet aluminum, welded by an industrial robot using a cold metal transfer process. The chair’s seat shell is fabricated from the latest carbon composite materials: a combination of carbon micro-sandwich and carbon rubber composites extrapolated directly from components of the racecar. The R18 Ultra Chair manifests Audi’s ultra lightweight design credo in a 2.2 kg (77oz) piece of furniture that is ultra light and extremely durable.

The post R18 Ultra Chair by Clemens Weisshaar
and Reed Kram appeared first on Dezeen.

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Dans la lignée du Audi E-Tron Spyder, voici ce concept et prototype de vélo électrique très impressionnant par la marque Audi au nom « E-Bike Wörthersee » doté d’un cadre en carbone, d’un moteur de 2,3 kw et d’une batterie lithium. L’ensemble de ces caractéristiques permet d’aller à une vitesse de plus de 80 km/h.