Experts warn that it will take at least a generation for a fully self-driving car to drive safely without any direct human intervention, and its ultimate beneficiary will be Ralph Tito, a groundbreaking blind inventor. Cruise control system is Tito's electromechanical equipment in 1950s, which partially realized the automation of driving speed, paving the way for newer digital technologies such as GPS driving direction, hazard prediction interruption and active lane control.
The misfortune of childhood rudely pushed Tito into the challenge of daily navigation. Tito 1890 was born in Hages, Indiana, and grew up in a big family of family-owned manufacturing enterprises, from bicycle manufacturing to the adaptation and development of automobile engines. At the age of five, Tito accidentally blinded one eye while playing with a knife. Within a year, the trauma of one eye caused the injury of the other eye, that is, sympathetic visual impairment, which made him completely blind. however
Ti Tuo soon honed his writing skills. His daughter Marjory Tito Meyer wrote in her biography 1995: "His sense of touch is legendary." "His hands are his eyes," recalled his grandson Ralph Meyer of the same name. On Christmas morning, I would show him my favorite toys. "
As Meyer explained, his grandfather learned to cruise around Heggs alone, such as sensing the corners of buildings through the subtle echoes of his metal pointed shoes, or calculating the pace between known landmarks. He can even avoid traffic accidents at the turn of the century. "He can smell the horse. He added that the first car was not quiet. With the encouragement of his family, Tito often broke through obstacles. " Bill Hammacher, a professor of chemistry and biomolecular engineering who studies Tito's innovative technology, said: "After graduating from high school, he decided to become an engineer, at a time when many universities even refused to consider his application. "Because Tito's cousin Niwa Deardorff is a graduate student in economics at the University of Pennsylvania, he personally persuaded the engineering department head of the University of Pennsylvania to let him join the university's mechanical engineering project. Ralph just needs Neva's help reading textbooks and doing homework. Harmach said, "Successful engineers think in images. "Their thoughts occupy a non-verbal world and are not easy to be reduced to language. Ralph Tito had this idea. After graduation, Tito finally returned to China, but before that, he designed a breakthrough technology to dynamically balance the steam turbines on the US Navy warships. When his father and three uncles chose to specialize in producing the perfect round brand under piston rings, Ralph became the chief engineer of the company and eventually became the president of the company. Because a better piston ring means a more efficient and powerful engine, the perfect circular piston ring will soon become the standard.
According to family legend, Harry Lindsay, Tito's patent lawyer, friend and frequent driver, had unstable accelerator pedal, which was the original inspiration of cruise control. More likely, there are other effects. For example, during World War II, in order to save gasoline and tire rubber, the United States imposed a speed limit of 35 miles per hour nationwide. In addition, as the grandson Meyer explained: "As the chairman of the American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE),