Renesas Technology Announced the World's First Commercial ITS Verification Test inChangchun City, China

The Japanese automotive semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Technology announced the world first commercial ITS verification test using WAVE technology in ChangChun City, China.

The verification consists of three buses, eight bus stops and an intersection in equipped with WAVE terminals, developed by Renesas. The WAVE system is used for the information exchange between buses and stops for the applications of bus arrival time prediction, video stream transmission between intersection and buses, as well as onboard surveillance.

For more information, please read the news release from Renesas. (PDF)

Test Center for "Connected Vehicle" Technology in Detroit

Detroit - Jan. 26, 2009. -- The vehicle communication technology is there, and now requires to be implemented and tested and put into production.

The Michigan International Speedway offered its track, which is know for NASCAR events, to the "Connacted Vehicles"initiative as a neutral testing ground for active safety applications using vehicular communication technology. It is said by MDOT's Krueger that the U.S. Department of Transportation pledged $100 million to this effort for a five-year period starting from 2005.

Source: The Detroit News

Honda demonstrates V2V communication system for motorcyclists

Honda's C2C solution covers also motorcycles ...

The original article
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Honda demonstrates V2V communication system for motorcyclists

October 23, 2008 No matter what your skill level, being aware of what's going on around you is THE most critical safety factor for all road users - if you don't see it coming, you are in big trouble. For motorcyclists, who are simply less visible on the roads and face a much greater risk of death or serious injury in the event that an accident does occur, this factor becomes even more important. In the past, the technology dedicated to inter-vehicle communication has been limited to blowing the horn or perhaps catching a radio report of an accident up ahead, but things are changing fast. This brings us to Honda's latest innovation in the field. The company has debuted a new Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication (V2V) system aimed at reducing road casualties of both motorcyclists and car drivers which links vehicles within a defined radio range via a wireless LAN network to provide immediate access to data on vehicle location, accidents, congestion or other potential threats that lie ahead.

The system monitors the position, speed, distance and direction of surrounding road users and the collected data is centralized before being sent to drivers and motorcyclists. For the latter, the information can be accessed on their navigation system display or relayed by means of an in-helmet audio system.

The HMI (Human Machine Interface) concept developed by Honda provides both a visual and an audible warning in safety critical situations. The visual element is located close to the rider's lin-of-sight on the upper edge of the motorcycle dashboard and uses changes in color and intensity to intuitively communicate the nature of the threat. This is backed by an audible warning delivered through a Bluetooth link to an in-helmet speaker.

Developed within the ASV (Advanced Safety Vehicle) program in Japan, Honda demonstrated the system for the first time at the CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium event at the Opel Test Track in Dudenhofen, Germany. The consortium brings together a number of vehicle manufacturers with the goal of bringing greater awareness and therefore safety to our roads.

Although there is no room to doubt the premise that greater awareness equals greater safety, the statistics cited by Honda to underpin their commitment to developing this technology make interesting reading.

EU funded research project (Motorcycle Accident In-Depth Study or MAIDS) collected in 1999 looked at data from 921 motorcycle accidents in 5 European countries. It was found that 88% of the accidents were mainly caused by human error, while 8% were due to external environmental factors such as weather conditions or road infrastructure. In 37 per cent of cases the motorcyclist was the cause of the accident, while in 50 per cent of cases the driver of the other vehicle was responsible. Of this 50 per cent, 72 per cent were so-called 'perception' failures, where the driver failed to see the motorcycle, three per cent were 'comprehension' failures (they saw the motorcycle but the brain did not recognize it as such), and 20 per cent were 'decision' failures (they saw the motorcycle but decided to continue with the intended manoeuvre anyway)... i.e. drivers tend not to see motorcyclists.

It's hoped systems like V2V will have an impact in particular problem areas such as accidents at an intersections and left-turn accidents (right-turn in the UK, Ireland, Australia etc) where a other vehicle cuts across the path of an oncoming motorcycle. Work is continuing into extending the scope of the system to assist more difficult situations. This includes identifying when are motorcyclists hidden in "blind-spots" or pinpointing the location of emergency services vehicles when a siren is sounding.

The Car 2 Car Consortium’s research and work, coupled with Honda’s latest safety innovation will result in a new era of road safety for all road users, where vehicle communication systems share vital information with the aim of helping to reduce the number of casualties on the roads," said General Manager of Honda (UK) Motorcycles, Steve Martindale. "Honda fully supports the EU targets for traffic fatality reduction and we’re pleased to be able to further our commitment under the European Road Safety Charter with this latest vehicle communication safety system.”

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More readings:

Honda Demonstrates Life Saving Motorcycle Technology

HONDA’S BIKE THAT TALKS TO CARS

Car to car communication the safety device of the future

Car-2-Car communications demonstrated by BMW, VW, Nissan and GM

Considered as the following up activities from the spectrum regulation of 30MHz ITS frequency band at 5.9GHz in EU, BMW, VW, Nissan, and GM have demonstrated their active safety systems based on vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies:

BMW announces Car-2-Car communications development

*Picture from motorauthority

The Car-2-Car Communication Consortium (C2C-CC) consisting of various European manufacturers, including BMW, Daimler, Renault, Fiat, VW, Honda, Opel, Volvo and Audi has been working on the European Car-2-Car (C2C) communication system that has standard interface agreed by all carmakers and a uniform frequency radio frequency enable the cars to communication effectively.

The recently approved the 5.9 GHz frequency band specifically for C2C communications in Europe marked a key milestone in the standardiyation process for C2C industry.

BMW's C2C system enables vehicles to communicate with other vehicles in the vicinity for the purpose of danger warning, and traffic information exchange. The communication is performed using the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology, which organizes vehicles into ad-hoc wireless network on the road.

Similar system has been developed not only by the partners from C2C-CC, e.g. VW, but also by carmakers outside of the initiative, such as Nissan and General Motors. The systems have to be compatible with each other for being truely effective.

Source and picture courtesy: motorauthority

Volkswagen's Car-2-Car system begins testing


Volkswagen performed a test of its Car-2-Car communication system with a Passat and a Golf, which both use the WLAN technology for information exchange between the cars. Each vehicle can access to the car bus throught the "Car Gate" and get a abstract of car data, such as speed, wheel speeds or status of the hazard flashers, and exchange the information with adjacent vehicles in order to help drivers to aviod adverse situations.

For more information and photo courtesy: motorauthority

Related readings:
Nissan to pilot pedestrian collision avoidance system
GM develops second-generation car-to-car communications system