What if you could package the control electronics in a little towable
trailer. Then when impact is iminent and no more steering is required,
have it lock the on board controls to "full steam ahead" and detach
itself from the car. It would still have to be somewhat rugged, and
you'd have to put brakes on it so that the inertia doesn't carry it
right into the back of the car. Or <bg> you could get some model
rockets, and have it blast off from the top of the car a la fighter
pilot ejection seat :) If you do go with that...I wanna see videos :)

Josh
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Michael Rigby-Jones wrote:

> If the system has to be completely self contained within the car, a vision
> system is probably the way to go.  With a high contrast line, a cheap B/W
> CCD camera would likely be adequate.  The processing is way beyond the
> average 8 bit micro though, I would be looking at embedded PC's at this
> stage, but of course cost will be an issue.  If it's ruggedised enough then
> perhaps it could be made re-usable?

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