Sat.nav A Matter Of Course

Sun Herald

Saturday June 29, 1996

Edited by PHIL SCOTT

THE self-navigating car will be on Australian roads soon after Christmas.

BMW, in partnership with Telstra and Philips, will introduce the first "smart" satellite-guided navigation system on its flagship 7 Series models. The system will be a full colour electronic street directory that will lead luxury car drivers to their destinations with pinpoint accuracy.

The hardware is called CARIN, developed by Dutch electronics giant Philips.

The driver views a small screen set into the dashboard (which does double duty as a colour TV).

In the boot is a CD-ROM player and, integrated into BMW's on board electronics, the equivalent of three high-end Macintosh computers and an electronic compass.

Equipped with this gear, the car can plot its position, accurate to within 10 metres, by taking a fix on any two or three of the eight US military Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites in orbit over Australia at any one time.

To make the system work, Telstra, the UBD street directory people and Philips are combining to put every road, intersection, off-ramp, lane and roundabout in Australia on to a single compact disc.

Plug the disc into the boot of the BMW, switch on the system and punch in a destination. The car does the rest, plotting its present position and destination then displaying the best route.

The screen display then gives drivers simple arrows and distances to follow with a voice command for reinforcement.

"Turn left in 50 metres at the roundabout," is the voice command. Up on the screen is a schematic of the intersection and a big, clear directional arrow.

I've driven with the system in Germany, finding a hotel in downtown Wiesbaden from a country road 63km out of town without missing a beat.

Melbourne-based BMW drivers will be the first to benefit. The system will be launched there in February with Sydney to follow three months later.

By early 1998 the technology will have all of Australia on a single compact disc.

Telstra's investment, which amounts to more than $10 million, won't earn a commercial return just from in-car satellite navigation. It is digitally mapping

Australia for future multimedia use.

Philips says the next step is what it calls "dynamic information transmission".

Within five to 10 years the system will be able to receive live information about traffic jams and roadworks, for example, and divert the driver around the problem.

Right now the BMW system will cost owners an extra $5,000 or so, plus $250 for the compact disc mapping which will be updated regularly.

That's a lot more than a $30 street guide but, as the history of high-tech developments like anti-lock brakes, fuel injection and air bags shows, it shouldn't take more than five years for sat. nav. to become a reality in your next Calais or Fairmont Ghia.

Philips predicts the price will be no more than that for a high-end car sound system.