Mitsubishi Electric Corp., a supplier of air-to-air missiles to Japan’s armed forces, is looking to adapt the technologies it originally developed for military use to help autonomous driving cars detect obstacles and avoid collisions.
Components such as millimeter-wave radars, sonars, sensors and cameras — some of which were developed to guide missiles — are being adapted for use in self-driving vehicles that will hit the roads by 2020, Katsumi Adachi, senior chief engineer at Mitsubishi’s automotive equipment division, said in an interview. It has received orders for automatic braking systems and instruments that help a vehicle keep to its lane, he said.