Automotive Electronics Strategy with an Eye to the Future
One day in 1976, then Senior Managing Director of Honda R&D Tadashi Kume(later Honda’s third president), asked Katsutoshi Tagami, in charge of the development of generators at the Power Products Division of Honda R&D, to take on a new assignment: “We need you to start working on automotive electronics.” Tagami had never before thought about getting involved in the area of automobiles and, despite the puzzled look on his face, Kume continued: “We need to catch up with our competitors and then be one step ahead of them. That will be your role.”
Automotive electronics technologies had begun advancing rapidly since the early part of the 1970s; however, Honda was lagging behind its competitors in this field as Honda was devoting its energy to the development of the CVCC engine, which represented the mechanical aspect of automotive technologies. Kume was foreseeing that electronics technologies would soon become an important part of engine development and, feeling a sense of crisis in the situation facing Honda, he instructed Tagami to lead the development of Honda’s original electronics technologies.
Tagami shared Kume’s view that electronics technologies would soon become essential to maintaining the superiority of Honda engines. Moreover, the prospect for a continuous stream of new advances convinced Tagami that engine control wouldn’t be the only area where electronics technologies would be critical. Thus, he began his new role as head of the Electronic Component Research Group by identifying specific areas Honda must pursue in order to gain a strong foothold in the area of electronics technologies, and then compiled them into a comprehensive automotive electronics strategy.
His perspective on the future was that once electronic engine control was achieved, electronic transmission control would follow, which would evolve into automatic cruise control, then to automated steering. And eventually automobiles will become capable of automatically selecting the appropriate route and reaching the destination a user simply input on a map. In other words, the strategy Tagami worked out with the concept of “making automobiles intelligent” in 1976, already included the vision for automated driving.
Cars Don’t Know Their Own Location
Kume named the overall concept of electronics technologies envisioned in the strategy formulated by Tagami as the “ACE System” which roughly meant Automatically Adaptive and Creative Electronically Controlled System. Based on this concept Honda would later develop various control technologies including electronically controlled fuel injection (PGM-FI) systems and anti-lock brake systems (ABS), and yet another research theme Honda pursued was “route guidance.”
Back then, people would keep a bundle of maps in the glove box or door pocket and look at them to memorize directions and landmarks before setting out for their destination. Once lost, people had to guesstimate their current location based on landmarks and signage observed in the surrounding area and then find their location on the map, and memorize the directions and landmarks all over again.
Tagami was thinking that it would be so much more convenient if the car knew its own location and guided the driver to the destination, which could conceivably open up a whole new way of using an automobile. This was back when GPS was still limited to military use and civil/commercial use had yet to come. Therefore, cars had no way of knowing the single most critical piece of information required for any kind of route guidance – their own location.
Gas Rate Gyroscope Opens Up Possibility for Route Guidance
Around that time, Kume had a chance to observe the tank training of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. He noticed that even when the tank was traveling over rugged terrain, the gun barrel of the tank always stayed on target without being affected by the constantly changing attitude of the tank’s body. Once he learned that the position of the gun barrel was controlled by a gyroscope (which detects orientation and angular velocity), he wondered if automobiles could somehow benefit from the use of a gyroscope.
After returning to his workplace, Kume gave two instructions: One was to study gyroscope technology, and the other was to propose possible applications of gyroscope technologies to automotive systems. The idea was to propose “something” good for automobiles using a gyroscope. It may sound a little strange to begin an R&D project without knowing the possible outcomes; however, that is how some projects start at Honda.
Hearing Kume’s idea of using gyroscopes for automobiles, Tagami first thought of the possibility of using them for suspension systems. However, when he purchased and disassembled a gyroscope, he was dismayed to discover that it was a high precision instrument with more than 200 parts, and he couldn’t imagine how it could be applied to mass-produced automobiles.
With the belief that Honda needed something new that didn’t exist before to realize its electronics strategy through the ACE concept, Tagami started searching for a kind of gyroscope suitable for automotive applications. Finally, he found a “gas rate gyroscope,” which detects directional changes by utilizing the inertial force of helium gas, injected with a nozzle, to move straight forward. This gyroscope was made up of only eight parts, a simplicity that made it especially attractive. Although this type of gyroscope was not as accurate as the more sophisticated ones, with ongoing corrections Tagami started seeing the potential for automotive applications. The question then became “what” would Honda want to accomplish with this gas-rate gyroscope?
Then, one of the team members suggested the possibility of using it for route guidance. By combining information on the directional changes detected by a gyroscope with information of distance changes detected by a distance sensor, it would be possible to determine how the vehicle had moved relative to its starting point. The idea was that superimposing this trajectory onto a map would enable the driver to determine the vehicle’s current location, and by extension the route to a destination.
By this time, the technology to calculate the location of a moving object without relying on external information, such as radio waves, had already been put into practical application with aircraft and ships, but such equipment was too large and expensive to be used in a car. However, with the use of a simple gas rate gyroscope, even cars could be equipped with fully self-contained navigation systems. The goal was set.
Gas-rate gyro that realized the world’s first car navigation system
Where There’s a Will There’s a Way
Although the basic concept was finalized, there were still a number of problems that needed to be solved. The most important and difficult challenge was to ensure the accuracy of the gas rate gyroscope. Through trial and error, the team made numerous improvements to each of the gyroscope’s eight components. For example, realizing that performance would vary depending on ambient temperature, they installed the gyroscope in a container that could maintain a constant temperature.
While working on these improvements, Tagami was scouting for a manufacturer that might be willing to mass-produce the gas rate gyroscope for Honda. To ensure stable performance, the purity of the helium gas used inside the gyroscope needed to be high, and that would require the manufacturer to have knowledge and experience to realize a high vacuum level. Most of the manufacturers Tagami approached were reluctant to take on the mass-production of a new device with a high level of uncertainty as to whether it would become an actual product. Feeling desperate, Tagami made daily visits to the research center of Stanley Electric Co., Ltd., which already had excellent vacuum technology due to its manufacturing of headlights, and pleaded with the head of the R&D center to accept the project. In the end, Tagami’s earnest pleading for help resulted in gaining the cooperation of Stanley Electric.
Tagami recalled, “I think that as an engineer he could relate to our passion for creating something new. He stood up to objections within his company and gave us support. He truly was a lifesaver for us.” Being a humble man, Tagami attributed his success in moving the project forward to a shared passion among engineers. However, as the saying goes, “where there is a will, there is a way.” It is not difficult to imagine that it was Tagami’s strong will and enthusiasm which moved the heart of the R&D head of Stanley and cleared the way for this project.
The Accuracy of Maps
Once the gas rate gyroscope’s accuracy was improved, the route guidance system finally began taking shape. A green cathode ray tube (CRT) was used to display the map and the vehicle’s location. The user manually slipped a transparent map film into the space between the CRT and the front panel with a series of buttons used to operate the system. The onboard “computer” memorized and displayed the trajectory of the vehicle on the CRT from the starting point calculated based on the data from the gyroscope and distance sensors. By aligning the trajectory display with the map film, the user was able to know the real time location of the vehicle. A special erasable marker was used to mark the destination on the map so that the same map could be used repeatedly. The system also displayed a directional marker at the front end of the trajectory, enabling the driver to easily understand the current location and traveling direction of the vehicle. Although the vehicle’s trajectory and the map had to be aligned manually on the display, or “map matching”, it was tremendously convenient for the driver to know the location and traveling direction of their own vehicle without using a regular map.
The project made progress to the point where the system was ready for a road test, but the team ran into an unexpected problem during this real-world testing. At the road test, Tagami drove the vehicle and Kume and Nobuhiko Kawamoto, then assistant general manager at Honda R&D (and later the fourth president of Honda) also got in the vehicle. They drove along the same test course several times, however, each time, at the exact same place, the vehicle would deviate from the course shown on the map, and nobody could figure out why. Thinking that the onboard instruments were being affected by some kind of electrical interference from a nearby facility, they used a field strength meter to detect any such disturbances, but none could be found.
After exhausting every possibility, Tagami finally hit upon an idea: “Could the map be wrong?”
He contacted the map distributor and learned that in the world of cartography, the use of simplified representations known as “deformations” was a common practice. For example, on a map with a scale of 1:100,000, a 10 meter-wide road would be represented by a 0.1 millimeter-wide fine line. In areas where several roads run close together, these lines would have to be simplified to avoid overlapping, and this inevitably sacrificed a certain degree of precision and accuracy. However, when it comes to route guidance, sacrificing precision was just not a viable option, so the team decided to work with a map maker to create a new set of map sheets dedicated to the system Honda was developing.
Honda Electro Gyrocator and map sheet; map sheet was set in front of CRT
World’s First-Ever Car Navigation System
At the beginning of 1981, the road test for the final assessment of the route guidance system was conducted. For this test, the requirement was for Tagami to use the system to drive Kume from Suzuka, where Kume was attending a Honda automobile dealer convention, to his house in Tokyo, a distance of nearly 400 km (250 miles). Tagami had never been to Kume’s house before, but they left Suzuka at 6:00 AM, trusting the system and the map, with Kume using the marker to put a circle indicating his house in Tokyo. Getting on and off the expressways repeatedly following Kume’s instructions, they eventually arrived in Tokyo a little after 7:00 pm.
With a mixture of confidence and anxiety, Tagami looked on the CRT screen which was showing that the vehicle’s current location was approaching the circle Kume had put on the map. When it hit the circle Tagami resolutely stopped the car and said. “I believe your house is somewhere around here.” After a brief pause, Tagami heard Kume saying, “Well done. You passed the test. My house is right over there!” Those words sounded so good to Tagami, relieving the fatigue he was feeling especially after such a long and arduous journey.
Honda named its newly developed route guidance system the “Honda Electro Gyrocator,” and introduced it to the Japan market in August of that same year, as a dealer option for the second-generation Accord. This was how the world’s first-ever car navigation system was created. It was also the moment when Honda added new value to automobiles by formulating the future-oriented automotive electronics strategy and pursuing what Honda engineers believed in without compromise – gyrocator technologies and accurate maps.
Developing a Fully Automated Navigation System
Although the Gyrocator brought about innovative value to automobiles, many issues remained to be addressed. For example, the gas rate gyroscope required a warmup after switching it on from a cold start.*3 This was quite annoying since the vehicle had to be driven for a while and then stopped once for the user to do the “map matching” to align the vehicle trajectory and the map sheet. Also, since only a limited area could be displayed on any single map sheet, as the vehicle continued traveling the user had to manually switch the map sheet and align it with the vehicle trajectory every time the new sheet was inserted.
What customers wanted was an easy and reliable route guidance system that would take them to their desired destination without requiring a lot of extra parts and manual effort. Furthermore, a number of automakers exhibited their concept cars equipped with a navigation device at the Tokyo Motor Show in October 1981, shortly after Honda introduced the Gyrocator. In order to keep leading the race and establish overwhelming technological dominance in the field, it was imperative for Honda to quickly develop a fully automatic navigation system that would free users from the Inconvenience of the warm-up time or manual map matching.
The development of such a next-generation navigation system began in January 1982. Yukinobu Nakamura, one of the development team members, already had the concept for the next-generation navigation system in mind. As an associate of Honda R&D, Nakamura was given an opportunity to study at what was then the Electro Technical Laboratory (ETL)*4, the leading public research institution in the field of electronics engineering, located in Tsukuba (approx. 45 miles north of Tokyo). There, he researched the fiber-optic gyroscope which achieved higher accuracy without any warm-up time, as it was considered a possible successor technology for the gas rate gyroscope.
Nakamura frequently used the Gyrocator for a roughly 90-minute commute he made between Honda R&D’s Wako Research Center and the ETL in Tsukuba. While watching the current location marker on the display, which kept extending with the display of the trajectory, some ideas suddenly flashed into his mind: “Put digital maps in an optical disc...Use a computer to continuously align the vehicle trajectory with the road on the map...A fiber-optic gyroscope eliminates the need for warm-up time...” These ideas came together as one in a heartbeat. This was at the end of 1980, more than a year before Honda undertook the development of the next-generation navigation system.
The development of the next-generation navigation system began with the following three projects based on Nakamura’s concept, with Nakamura appointed as the large project leader (LPL) for the fully-automated navigation system.
- Development of an analog map-based navigation system as an advanced version of the Gyrocator
- Development of a fully-automated navigation system that uses digital maps and features a computer that performs automatic “map matching”
- Research into fiber-optic gyroscope technology
- Cold start is a condition in which the engine has been left to cool for at least six hours, so that coolant, oil, etc. all reach the same ambient temperature.
- ETL (Electro Technical Laboratory), a research institution that existed under the then Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of the then Ministry of International Trade and Industry (later the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, METI). In 2001, the ETL was consolidated into the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology （AIST）
The Accuracy Barrier
The primary goal of the project led by Nakamura was to realize automatic map matching with the use of digital maps. However, this was the time when audio CDs (compact discs) were about to become standard, and there was still no established storage medium in the world that could store digital map data. So, the team tentatively used an eight-inch floppy disk for testing purposes, but decided to work simultaneously on the development of a CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory) that could store the map data.
The first test unit was completed in September 1982 and achieved the primary goal of realizing automatic map matching. However, it still experienced some mismatches, so the team did not consider this unit to have sufficient functionality. The digitalization of map data was proceeding in earnest with the use of a map production device; however, the development of the CD-ROM was running behind schedule. On top of that, Kawamoto, by now vice president of Honda R&D, had expressed his expectation to see a highly accurate system. Nakamura recalled that, for a while during this period, he was having frequent nightmares about the system being tested, and the vehicle’s current location marker inexplicably kept drifting off the road on the map, right in front of Kawamoto. Nakamura would panic, only to wake up and find it was a dream.
A Fruitful Detour
The struggle continued in the improvement of the analog map-based navigation system, which was supposed to precede the development of the digital map-based system. When the original plan of storing map data on a laser disk (LD) became unworkable due to a change in circumstances of the joint development partner, the team went with plan B and decided to use microfilm, which made it difficult to realize the automatic map switching function.
The joint development of LDs finally became possible in 1984; however, by then, in order to make up for the delay in development, the team had to let go of the original plan for the simultaneous development of both the analog map-based and digital map-based systems. Honda decided to first focus on the analog map-based system, and Nakamura assumed the responsibility to lead this project as the LPL, which effectively put development of the digital map-based navigation system on hold.
In 1985, a U.S.-based company, namely ETAK, introduced its digital map-based navigation system. Although the system’s effective geographical coverage was limited, it did prove, before Honda could, that navigation could be automated using digital maps and automatic map matching.
In 1986, the analog map-based navigation system developed by Nakamura’s team completed the “R2” development stage (comprehensive assessment of marketability, production viability, and reliability). However, by then, a navigation system which required manual map matching was no longer in demand. Thus, the decision was made not to pursue commercialization of the new analog map-based system, and the development of a digital map-based system resumed.
Despite their indescribable feelings of disappointment, Nakamura and his team members couldn’t waste any time getting back on track. In order to realize the earliest possible commercialization, the team made a decision to strive for a system which was workable with only main roads on the maps. Such a system could be realized by combining a high-precision gyrocator and an advanced map-matching mechanism, which made it possible for the system to perform map matching even after the vehicle drove on a road not included in the map. The experience and know-how gained from the development of the analog map-based navigation system made it possible for the team to develop this new system in a relatively short period of time and, finally, the digital map-based navigation system made its debut in the second-generation Legend which hit the market in 1990.
Although this development had taken a long detour, the expertise and know-how that Honda had amassed through the process were undeniable. Honda was eventually granted the most basic patents on the digital map generation and map-matching technologies, which enabled Honda to continue playing the pioneering role in the area of next-generation car navigation systems.
Second generation Legend
The Significance of the Honda Electro Gyrocator
The world’s first car navigation system based on a gas rate gyroscope did not become popular in the market and was overtaken by GPS navigation systems. However, the concepts and technologies that realized fully self-contained route guidance set the direction for the future of automotive electronics and later contributed to the development and advancement of Intelligent Transport System (ITS) technologies.
In 2017, the world was reminded of Honda’s achievements in the field of automotive electronics when the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE),*5 the world’s largest academic society in the fields of electricity, electronics, information and communications, recognized Honda’s achievements and designated the Honda Electro Gyrocator as an IEEE Milestone, making Honda the first company in the automotive industry to be honored by this program.
The achievements made by Honda engineers involved in the development of navigation systems are a reminder of the words Honda co-founder Takeo Fujisawa left for Honda associates who came after him: “From nothing comes something.” *6
- The IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers) is the world’s largest academic society representing the fields of electricity, electronics, information and communications and is headquartered in the U.S. With more than 420,000 members in over 190 countries, the IEEE plays a leading role in the fields of key technologies such as computer, biotechnology, telecommunication, electricity, aeronautics/aviation and electronics. In 1983, the institute established the “IEEE Milestone Program,” which recognizes historical achievements that have made significant contributions to the development of local communities and industries. Other major achievements recognized by this program include:
- The Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train (2000; Central Japan Railway Co.)
- The Kurobe River No. 4 Power Plant (2010; Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.)
- The Apollo Lunar Module (2011; Northrop Grumman Corporation)
- Takeo Fujisawa, co-founder of Honda with Soichiro Honda, contributed greatly to the growth of Honda. In a Honda newsletter published in 1955, Fujisawa made reference to the company’s entry into the agricultural engine business and explained the importance of “making something out of nothing,” and noted that the difficulties faced in breaking from convention were, in fact, the fundamentals of creation. His message was translated as “Make what doesn’t yet exist,” and have been handed down through generations of Honda associates as the essence of Honda’s spirit of monozukuri (art of making things) .
Honda Electro Gyrocator and IEEE award plaque (photo taken in 2023 at the Honda Collection Hall)
