Electronic Cruise Control
Daniel Aaron Wisner invented Automotive Electronic Cruise Control in 1968 as an engineer for RCA's Industrial and Automation Systems Division in Plymouth, Michigan. His invention described in two patents filed that year (#3570622 & #3511329), with the second modifying his original design by debuting digital memory, was the first electronic gadgetry to play a role in controlling a car and ushered in the computer-controlled era in the automobile industry. Two decades lapsed before an integrated circuit for his design was developed by Motorola Inc. as the MC14460 Auto Speed Control Processor in CMOS. As a result, cruise control was eventually adopted by automobile manufacturers as standard equipment and nearly every car built and many trucks are fitted with a configuration of the circuitry and hardware nearly identical to his prototype. The advantage of electronic speed control over its mechanical predecessor, which was featured on luxury models but never gained wide acceptance, was that it could be easily integrated with electronic accident avoidance and engine management systems.
Read more about this topic: Cruise Control
Famous quotes containing the words electronic, cruise and/or control:
“Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors. Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of being mauled by it.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“I am the center of the world, but the control panel seems to be somewhere else.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)