Chip-based analytics could rapidly identify a drunk driver and ease the car off the road.

Imagine a world in which almost nobody died in traffic accidents, drunk drivers were a thing of the past and your car warned you far ahead of time whenever a belt or other engine part was about to fail.

You may think that’s too good to be true, but TI engineers beg to differ. Consider just a few of the innovative ways they’re working to achieve such a vehicular nirvana:

• TI is placing advanced radar technology on a single computer chip that not only warns you if there’s a car in the lane you’re moving into but is affordable enough to install in even the least expensive car.
• An individual sensor may alert you of an overheating engine, but TI has its sights set on an array of sensors: low-power, inexpensive devices that constantly monitor everything – sound, sight, smell, motion and more. And a central chip will track all their inputs and alert you when anything is amiss. We call it sensor fusion. Vehicle manufacturers call it flat-out cool.
• Drunk drivers cause thousands of deaths a year, but highly sensitive chip-based analytics that monitor the driver’s use of just the pedals and the wheel could rapidly identify a drunk driver, ease the car off the road and shut it down. Here’s the bonus: The technology could also spot your 15-year-old sneaking the car out.
• You may think TI’s landmark DLP display technology is just for use in movie theaters, conference rooms and at home, but soon it will enable touch screens that are molded to the curve of the most alluring dashboard and fundamentally change your interactions with your vehicle.

There’s much more on our drawing boards as well, including safety-enhancing advances in the dozens of embedded processors and microcontrollers that oversee the functioning of airbags, advanced braking technology and other vehicle systems. We don’t make cars, but we’re pulling out all the stops to make them safer.

Radar-on-a-chip and an expanded array of sensors will enhance our automotive lives, but the shining star has got to be DSP analytics, which could prevent thousands of drunk-driving fatalities a year.