Car-2-Car Communication System from University of Sourth Australia

Sydney, 13 Feb. 2009 -- A active safety system using Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology has been developed by a team from University of South Australia. The system use DSRC combining GPS for car communication aiming at safety applications like danger warning. The field trails of this system developed by Cohda Wireless and University of SA have been conducted in the US and Europe, and a large-scale trial is planned for Adelaide, according to the news.

News sources:
- Talking cars alert to danger and may avert crashes at www.news.com.au
- Soon, cars will talk to each other to avert accidents at sindhtoday
- University Of South Australia Says Inter-Car Communication Could Be A Reality By 2012 at www.themotorreport.com.au
- Getting cars talking to reduce accidents at www.australianit.news.com.au
- Cars to become wireless nodes with DSRC radio tech at www.geek.com
- The Next Node on the Net: Your Car! at www.readwriteweb.com

Electronic Nervous System for the Modern Vehicle

Driver assistance system using cameras and sensors is about to have dramatic effect on the automobile. The article by Christoph Hammerschmidt from EETimes Europe provided a glance on the state of the art on CMOS image sensors and DSP technologies applied in driver assistance systems. As an outlook, the article also revealed that driver assistance systems are evolving to a kind of electronic nervous system for the modern car, which is able to perform lane maintaining, traffic sign recognition, pedestrian recognition and even virtual situation imaging using car-to-car communication.

The article is available at: The thinking car sees a clear road ahead @ EETimes Dec. 2008

"Active Safety Car" Project in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany

09, Jan. 2009 -- A consortium of six companies led by Delphi Deutschland has launched the research project, namely Active Safety Car, working towards the automotive-based system that utilizes on-board cameras and sensors, as well as car-to-car communication to improve the traffic safety. The project is partly founded by the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state government.

The aim of the project is to develop a system that uses cameras, radars and sensors not only to recognize, but also share and exchange the information with other vehicles about hazards. Therefore, the focuses of research will be real-time image processing, pattern recognition, on-board real-time information processing, and car-to-car communication.

* Figure from allesueberautotechnik.de

* Figure from allesueberautotechnik.de

The consortium consists of Delphi Deutschland, Wuppertal University, Ceteq GmbH & Co KG,
Riedel Communications, and Volkswagen AG. The research tasks cover the following ares:
* Pedestrian safety through pedestrian detection and warning
* Vehicle detection and warning,
* Accident prediction and warning of critical situations,
* Prototype implementation
* Camera based pedestrian and vehicle recognition
* Car-to-Car or Car-to-Infrastructure communication

Source and figure courtesy:
allesueberautotechnik: Active Safety Car
EEtimes: Cars share cameras, radar sensors
www.elektroniknet.de: Projekt »Active Safety Car« gestartet

Intelligent In-Vehicle Road Management Boosts Hybrid-Car Efficiency

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is believed to be effective in improving transportation safety and efficiency. For a driver, the most concerned benefits are time saving and fuel efficiency. An article from Peter Fairley, IEEE Spectrum Online, reports the research by Yaoyu Li, an mechatronics expert in University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, which has developed control algorithms that use route and traffic data to allow hybrid vehicles to plan how and when to use stored battery power so as to burn as little gasoline as possible.


PHOTO: David Lewis/iStockphoto (source IEEE Spectrum on-line)

"The idea has merit, according to Tom Robinson, senior manager, control and electronics, at automotive-systems supplier Ricardo, in Shoreham-by-Sea, England. “If you know what’s forthcoming, you can inform vehicle systems to operate more effectively,” says Robinson, whose company has worked on similar algorithms for conventional hybrids. "

The foreseeable effective ITS would consist not only the infrastructure and solutions providing the real-time information from environments, but also mechanisms that use such information and turn the information into real profits for users. Li's research exactly addressed and revealed the potential of the latter.

Article source and photo courtesy: Software Looks at the Road Ahead to Boost Hybrid-Car Efficiency, by Peter Fairley First Published February 2009

Demonstration of Inter-vehicle Communication with Dedicated Moniter in Japan

Japan, 4th Feb, 2009 -- In the field test of an inter-vehicle communication system, which was conduced by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism in late January 2009, Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI) Ltd and Mitsubishi Motors Corp employed a on-board system with dedicated monitor for warning the driver about the approaching risks. Whereas, other carmakers use the navigation screen to alert the driver in their systems, e.g., Honda Motor Co Ltd, Mazda Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co Ltd.
The dedicated monitor overpermes the navigation screen due to the fact that drivers can check the dedicated monitor with less eye movenment.

As illustrated in the following pictures, the dedicated monitor provide warnings by changing the color, indicating the kind and the direttion of dangers with large icons, which are all easy to identifiy for drivers.

"A dedicated monitor is installed on the car navigation monitor. When no vehicle is approaching, the color of the screen is blue. The driver can see the blue color with little eye movement, without looking at the car navigation screen."

"The color of the dedicated monitor turns yellow when there is a vehicle approaching. And the monitor displays an icon corresponding to the type of the approaching vehicle and the possible accident type."

"Mitsubishi's test vehicle. A dedicated monitor is installed on the car navigation system."

"Icons are displayed on the monitor when there is a high risk of collision. The icons in the photo are indicating that a bicycle is moving in the opposite lane when the car is making a right turn at an intersection."

"There is a vehicle approaching in the opposite lane at a right turn."

"The dedicated monitor shows a direction (such as "E" and "W") when there is no vehicle with equipment for inter-vehicle communications in the vicinity."

"Upon the detection of a vehicle with the equipment, the monitor displays the letters "IVC." As long as there is no risk of collision, the monitor continues displaying the letters."

Source and photo courtesy techon.nikkeibp.co.jp

AutoNet -- "From academic literature to the mainstream press"

The recent media attention to researches on vehicle-to-vehicle communication and autonomous traffic-information system triggered an interesting discussion on the evolution of "Autonet" technology from researchers at UC Irvine’s Institute of Transportation Studies:


"Autonet: the time is now"

Source and photo courtesy : Transportation Project Attracts Media Interest

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