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23 that future now. "We currently make about 60% of our automotive sales with advanced driver assistance systems and other digitalized technologies such as electronics, sensor systems and software. Last year [2014] those sales exceeded €12 billion. We expect that, in the next fve years, growth here will outperform the average growth in the automotive sector." That's because electronics, sensor systems and software are all key elements in driving forward today's and tomorrow's vehicles. (This is not to say that Continental doesn't make things that aren't electronics, sensors and software. For example, it makes an array of products ranging from hydraulic brakes to polyamide transmission crossbeams.) BEYOND MIRRORS. Consider the side- and rear-view mirrors in a car. The side-view mirrors are generally difcult for most drivers to adjust so that there are no blind spots (which has led to sensors that serve as the basis of blind-spot detection systems) and they cause aerodynamic drag, which can have an efect on fuel efciency. And glare—particularly at night as a result of vehicles behind one's own—is a typical problem with the rear-view mirror, to say nothing of the blind spots that can be created by a vehicle's C- and D-pillars. So Conti has developed a proposed system that uses three cameras in place of the three mirrors. According to Alfred Eckert, director of the Advanced Engineering Dept. in Continental's Chassis & Safety Div., "There are no blind spots in this camera monitor system. The efects of unwanted optical phenomena such as glare and weak light can also be compensated." (These are addressed through the use of a High Dynamic Range (HDR) function in the cameras, which optimizes the lighting conditions on the interior monitors; the prototype setup uses two monitors based on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) oriented toward the driver such that there are views from the rear and sides of the vehicle readily viewed.) In terms of the location of the cameras themselves, the two side-view cameras are located at the base of the A-pillars in small, pyramid-shaped housings (Eckert: "By eliminating the wing mirrors, we have created an additional beneft because the vehicle's air resistance is reduced. The low drag coefcient reduces fuel consumption, and wind fow noise at higher speeds is diminished."); the third camera is integrated into the base of the GPS antenna. p This sensor system combines a camera and lidar system. It can both detect objects and help determine the closing speeds to help mitigate or eliminate collisions. p Through the use of a sensor array that combines cameras, lasers and radar, the driver is able to get more comprehensive information regarding the vehicle's surroundings. In addition to a greater, better view of the surrounding environment, Dr. Otmar Schreiner, head of R&D; at Interior Electronics Solutions in Continental's Interior Div., suggests that if these camera-based monitors become approved (apparently, there is a good likelihood of approval in 2016 via the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Regulation 46), additional driver information could be included in the images on the monitors: it "opens up the possibility of providing situational instructions on the monitors." Meaning, this simply wouldn't be a system showing what is surrounding the vehicle in a superior way to mirrors, but it could actually provide the driver with tips, recommendations or instructions (think, for example, of how on many backup monitor systems there are lines indicating the track of the wheels as the vehicle is reversed: this approach could be amplifed.) And as the implementation of camera systems rolls forward, they're looking at the deployment of software that can perform object recognition and classifcation from the information obtained by the mono cameras,