servomechanamagic
There is no physical connection between the flaps of an aircraft and the joystick in the cockpit; it's all done via servos. It's clear why that's the case; Arnold is too busy being a governor to fly an A380.
A little back I was curious as to when they would remove the physical connection between the steering wheel of a car and the wheels. Interestingly I discovered that people have already done this in the movies; I believe (although not 100% sure) that the car driven in the chase in The Bourne Supremacy was steered using servos, which allowed a camera mount to be attached to any side of the car to get good action shots.
As aircraft and the car in that film have proved, it is feasible to improve cars in this way, but it doesn't seem to be on the requirement list of the next Ford I-Don't-Want-To-Stand-Out 2.0i. I find it a bit of a shame because cars haven't changed in such a long time that I believe they're due a technological breakthrough.
On a slightly related topic this is cool. Remote surgery via the interweb. Click a few buttons and you automagically operate on someone. Come on Mercedes, even our surgeons are using servomechanisms now - catch up!
A little back I was curious as to when they would remove the physical connection between the steering wheel of a car and the wheels. Interestingly I discovered that people have already done this in the movies; I believe (although not 100% sure) that the car driven in the chase in The Bourne Supremacy was steered using servos, which allowed a camera mount to be attached to any side of the car to get good action shots.
As aircraft and the car in that film have proved, it is feasible to improve cars in this way, but it doesn't seem to be on the requirement list of the next Ford I-Don't-Want-To-Stand-Out 2.0i. I find it a bit of a shame because cars haven't changed in such a long time that I believe they're due a technological breakthrough.
On a slightly related topic this is cool. Remote surgery via the interweb. Click a few buttons and you automagically operate on someone. Come on Mercedes, even our surgeons are using servomechanisms now - catch up!
posted by nj at
08:03
2 Comments:
"A little back I was curious as to when they would remove the physical connection between the steering wheel of a car and the wheels"
I remember reading about either the steering, or the brakes, being required by law to have a physical connection, so a computer / servo crash or malfunction wouldn't make the car suddenly lethal to anything nearby. Mercedes/BMW are well on the way to getting around this, what with various speed-sensitive power steering and fly-by-wire brake systems.
By
Anonymous, at 4:12 pm
That's really intersting, I didn't know that. They should really get round to updating the rules - I can't imagine many cars would fair very well if the engine management system decided to go HAL on you, although you'd know more about that than me.
Given that Mercedes have been at the cutting edge of all other vehicular technological advancements, I had imagined them being on the ball with this one (hence the mention in the last paragraph). They get my thumbs up.
By
Anonymous, at 5:58 pm
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