Autonomous or smart transportation has gone from being a concept to a fast-evolving reality in the space of just a few years. Studies predict a very high growth rate in the deployment of technologies in automotive applications, examples being:
- “Smart transportation market worth $139Bn by 2020” (Markets and Markets, 2015).
- “22 billion sensors used in the automotive industry per year by 2020” (Automotive Sensors, 2015).
- “The automotive sector is the largest consumer of micro-controller systems, with a market estimated to be worth $27Bn by 2020” (Grand View Research, 2015)
All aspects of the transportation system will be touched by these dramatic developments, not just cars, but also buses, parking systems, planes, trains, traffic management, trucks and, of course, all important safety systems. New devices are therefore now universally seen as key to enabling Smart Transportation.
Modern cars already have up to 100 sensors and, with increased use of wireless systems such as Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi & Cellular, more and more devices with added functionality are being developed. But such devices will often need new power sources in order to operate autonomously for long periods of time (circa 10 years). This is all the more important as cabling is now the third heaviest component (behind chassis and engine), averaging 100kg (Automotive Sensors, 2015).
The enabling technology for deploying increased sensor numbers is distributed energy storage using Solid State Batteries (SSB) such as Ilika plc (LON:IKA) StereaxTM.