This application is no different than air traffic control

For more than 150 years, spark plugs have powered internal combustion engines. Automakers are now one step closer to being able to replace this long-standing technology with laser igniters, which will enable cleaner, more efficient, and more economical vehicles.

In the past, lasers strong enough to ignite an engine’s air-fuel mixtures were too large to fit in a vehicle’s engine compartment. At this year's Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics (CLEO: 2011) -ITS International