Abstract
A quiet but deliberate revolution is taking place in the automobile field. Electronics and optical technologies familiar to the communication engineers are increasingly used in vehicles and in ways we would not have anticipated a decade ago. Optical fibers, head-up displays, holographic reflectors, in-vehicle LAN, cellular and microcellular radio communications, microprocessors for real time analysis and control, distributed intelligence, fiber gyros, integration of devices in optical and electrical connectors, to name a few familiar technologies are all part of the emerging intelligent vehicles and intelligent highways. This paper gives a brief overview of these emerging applications.