Tech Trends 2020 supplement published

From driverless cars to the smart factory of the future, regular readers will find plenty of familiar themes in this year's supplement But perhaps the main “take-home” point is the degree to which these disruptive and once-fringe technologies are entering industry’s mainstream thinking.

A case in point is the driverless car. We’ve been talking about the technology’s inexorable rise for year now, but in many senses autonomous vehicles have already hit the mainstream in the form of the increasingly sophisticated advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)  that are now commonplace on most new vehicles.  The emergence of these technologies, which range from automatic lane-keeping systems, to smart cruise control technology and even autonomous parking systems are increasingly are key steps on the path to full autonomy and evidence that many of the technical challenges presented by the vision of autonomous driving have already been overcome.