Energy harvesting, micro-fuel-cells and electronic stability in cars are under development at the world's MEMS makers.
Jiri Marek, Senior Vice President, Robert Bosch, which has been developing MEMS for 20 years shows, in an ISSCC 2010 keynote, how early MEMS usage in airbags and gyroscopes in cars has evolved into applications such as micro-mirrors and ink-jet heads and is now seen is a wide variety of uses:
Switching the cell-phone from portrait to landscape as the phone orientation changes;
Avoiding disk damage as the laptop falls;
Identifying vehicle vertical location in parking and multi-level highway structures through pressure sensing,;
Detecting weather trends;
Measuring personal altitude;
Monitoring activity in shoes and sportswear;
Providing intuitive controls for games and other interfaces.
Marek looks at how inertial sensors work in ESP (Electronic Stability Programmes) for cars.
ESP compensates for skidding or 'breaking away' (oversteer) by selectively working the ABS braking and Traction Control and by signalling the engine management system to reduce power.
If a car goes into a corner too fast ESP reduces the engine output even if the driver accelerates and if necessary, brakes the rear wheel on the inside of the bend.
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