Background: HeliOS the Greek mythical Sun God used to drive his chariot across the sky each day. This fun Project named after HeliOS to resemble his agility and power is aimed at harnessing the capabilities of GPS satellites to provide user friendly voice activated car automation system. It also integrates wireless messaging, music and information management platform to lead today’s automotive technology into the future.

Overview: Leveraging the advancements made in the field of mobile communication, positioning and digital multimedia, this project is aimed at providing the ultimate driving experience only read about in science fiction.

HeliOS has three primary aspects, namely – voice activated navigation system, automated wireless mobile multimedia management and automated digital imaging and management

Voice activated Navigation System: Using the power of the heavenly Global Positioning system and local GIS database provided by Microsoft Mappoint technology, HeliOS is able to automatically track the location of the user’s vehicle and provide navigational information real-time to the user. The system is capable of providing optimized routing information to a desired destination. It is intelligent enough to highlight nearest road services, nearest restaurant and hotel and automatically archive the trip log and route information on behalf of the user. To avoid compromising of the user’s safety, HeliOS exposes Voice Activated command mode thus allowing the driver to instruct the system vocally.

Automated Wireless Multimedia Management System: Using on-board computer, storage and wireless connectivity (802.11b), HeliOS integrates seamlessly with the Home Automation server (located in the user’s house) and downloads new music files available on the user’s home PC and makes them available to the user on the go. This extends the digital music collection of the user on the road even when he is miles away from his Digital Entertainment Center.

Automated Digital Imaging and Management: The introduction of Wireless technology have drastically changed the way we interact and use digital systems. Taking advantage of the Bluetooth technology, HeliOS talks to the user’s digital camera to retrieve pictures taken by the user during his trip and automatically integrates them to the trip archive. The HeliOS system users the presence of Digital Wireless LAN Hotspots to upload the trip log real-time to the user’s web site, thus enabling his dear ones at home to see the places visited by the user.