In the 2002 James Bond movie Die Another Day, the world’s most unsecret secret agent drove an invisible Aston Martin Vanquish. The technology behind it was, even then, all deliciously possible.
Q, the Bond gadgets guy, called it the Vanish. He explained it to Bond thus: “Tiny cameras on all sides project the image they see onto a light-emitting polymer skin on the opposite side. You see, to the casual eye it’s as good as invisible.”
Now that wafer-thin, flexible screens are reliable and low-cost enough to sell on the consumer market, and with high-definition cameras being tiny and dirt cheap, the invisible car, not to mention the invisible building, the invisible jet and indeed Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility, all seem merely a question of when.
Land Rover has just taken the first step towards the see-through car with what it calls a transparent bonnet. This is technology that dedicated off-roaders will hail as a far better idea even than sliced bread.
Tiny cameras mounted in the grille of a Discovery point at the ground and send their images to a head-up display unit the driver can turn on and off as required. When it’s turned on, the cameras show what is immediately under the front of the car while two virtual wheels indicate where the front wheels are and which way they’re pointed.
Anyone who has been off-roading will know the critical importance of correct wheel placement in avoiding rocks and, sometimes, of getting a wheel exactly on a rock to lift the rest of the underbody over a different obstacle.
The image of what’s under the front of the car is projected onto the windscreen with a bonnet outline around it. It’s just like being able to see straight through the bonnet and all the engine hardware under it. Superman’s X-ray vision in fact.
Dr Wolfgang Epple, director of research and technology for Jaguar Land Rover, said the technology would “give drivers an augmented view of reality to help them tackle anything from the toughest off-road route to the tight confines of an urban car park”.
The system, which also indicates the car’s angles of pitch and yaw on the head-up display, enables a driver climbing a steep incline or manoeuvring in a confined space to see what’s immediately in front of the car, but hidden from view. Like a high kerb in a car park. “We believe the next 25 years will be the most exciting and dynamic the automotive industry has ever experienced,” Epple said. “There will be huge strides in environmental innovation as well as in safety and capability.”
American automotive nomenclature being what it is, over there the transparent bonnet is probably being called the transparent hood.
