The Cutting Edge: Computing / Technology / Innovation : PLOWSHARES : Rockwell Device Offers Drivers Pointed Advice

You climb into your car, bound for a dinner date at an unfamiliar restaurant across town. You know the address. But which roads should you take to get there?

Enter the “in-vehicle navigation-route system,” a book-size display screen just to the right of your steering wheel. The system combines defense-based satellite technology and a computer to show and tell you how to reach any destination--all the while knowing exactly where your car is.

The system, designed by Seal Beach-based Rockwell International Corp. and Zexel Corp. of Japan, will be available as an option on Oldsmobile 88 models in California beginning in June. The cost: about $2,000.

The color screen combines elaborate street maps and other data with technology derived from the Pentagon’s Global Positioning System, a 24-satellite network that continually pinpoints an object’s position anywhere on the planet.

Several companies are developing ways to equip cars and trucks with electronic mapping systems. (The fledgling industry even held a convention this month.) But the Rockwell-Zexel system doesn’t require the driver to keep squinting at a map while driving.

The map appears for just a few seconds after you push a couple of buttons to enter the destination. Then the map is replaced by large arrows that show you when to make each turn along the route. Once you’re within two-tenths of a mile of each turn, a voice tells you the turn is approaching and whether it’s a right or left.

How does the system work? An antenna less than two inches square in the car’s rear window gets the signal from the GPS satellites and continually tells the navigation system where the car is. Once you input the destination, the computer calculates the longitudes and latitudes of the car’s location, of the destination and of each road in between, then figures the fastest route between where you are and where you’re going.

What if you don’t know the restaurant’s address? The system will scroll through a phone directory-type listing of restaurants in your county, find the address and provide the best route. The directory also includes airports, hotels, tourist attractions, banks and other sites.

The map data and the directory are stored on what is known as a PCMCIA memory card. It holds 85 megabytes of data and can give drivers all the information they need for California, as well as map data for the U.S. interstate highway network, said Ray Mathis, Rockwell’s director of navigation technologies.