car-to-x
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Road safety project simTD connects cars, infrastructure. Hopes to save lives, time
Live traffic info likely prevents many a clenched fist meeting steering wheel every single day. A new trial scheme in Frankfurt Germany, however, could prevent even more unnecessary road-rage. The project involves 120 vehicles from a range of manufacturers, loaded with "car-to-x" technology. Cars will communicate with each other, and with general infrastructure, in an attempt to make roads safe and less congested. As well as basic location data, other tools include a brake light that advises the car behind it once activated, and an obstacle warning system to share information on the presence and location of hazards -- as well as what those blockages are. The project is a collaboration between Universities, research institutes, telecom providers -- and of course -- the auto industry. We're keen to see how the trial turns out. Even if it's just to lower our next taxi fare.
BMW presents car-to-x communication, wants vehicles to talk more (video)
What good is an Ultimate Driving Machine if it can't get a little help from its friends? A new hazard-dodging system from BMW could help these Bavarian autos get a bit more chatty, each vehicle talking to nearby traffic across long-range wireless networks. In a series of video demonstrations, the car maker shows how the car-to-x system could give advance warnings of traffic, emergency vehicles and weather hazards by enabling one car to beam warnings directly to others. BMW hopes to connect the system to mobile phone networks as latency times improve and possibly even access data from traffic light systems. Sure, GM and Ford got there a bit earlier, but you can see BMW's implementation demonstrated after the break, and check out the via link for more videos of the world's most boring game of GTA.
NXP and Cohda teach cars to communicate with 802.11p, hopes to commercialize tech by 2014
Ford promised to give our cars X-ray vision, and this little blue box might be the key -- it's apparently the first standardized hardware platform for peer-to-peer automobile communications. Called C2X (for "car-to-x"), the module inside is the product of Cohda Wireless and near-field communications gurus at NXP, and it uses 802.11p WiFi to let equipped cars see one another around blind corners, through other vehicles, or even chat with traffic signals up to a mile away. Pocket-lint got a look at the technology during Automotive Week, and got a good idea of when we can expect the tech; NXP says it should begin rolling out in 2014, and hopes to have 10 percent of the cars on the road gleefully gabbing by 2020.
