At the Intelligent Transport System World Congress in Orlando, Florida this week, General Motors announced that it is working on a range of new safety systems, designed not only to reduce the impact of accidents but avoid them altogether.
Among the technologies being developed is the use of vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communication systems, which according to findings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, could help avert around 81 per cent of all traffic accidents.
The technology, which uses sensors, radar, GPS and cameras and can be either embedded in the vehicle or utilized via a portable, wireless handheld device, is designed to gather information that could warn drivers of potential hazards ahead, including pedestrians, stalled or crashed vehicles, slippery road surfaces or dangerous intersections, allowing either the driver, the vehicle, or both to take evasive action.
“These safety systems could provide a significant leap in automotive safety, but their effectiveness goes up dramatically as more people use them,” declared Don Grimm, a senior researcher at GM’s Perception and Vehicle Control Systems group. “By putting technology into portable devices, we could make this potentially life-saving technology widely available and more affordable.”
The wireless portable system that GM has been testing, features its own display screen, essentially a smart phone app that can connect directly with the vehicle’s audio and video display systems to integrate notifications and commands.
Both it and the embedded system (the other setup currently under evaluation), use what’s called a Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC), radio transmitter to communicate between devices, with a maximum range of 0.4 km (¼ of a mile) in all directions. The DSRC system can send and receive messages with other vehicles in the area as well as communicate with fixed radios employed on fixed structures like traffic lights, lampposts and construction zones.
As a result, if one driver gets an alert about potential hazards ahead, causing the vehicle to brake, those that follow behind get the same notification. The same applies to cars traveling in different directions, which could notify each other of an impending intersection before their respective drivers are even aware.
“The technology we’re testing right now is a viable solution for providing crucial safety information to drivers,” declared Grimm. “Later this decade, smartphones, transponders and embedded systems could be working together to make our roadways safer.”
