It's widely understood around the auto industry that cars are not going to get appreciably safer until they stop running into each other, which is why the technology DaimlerChrysler showed off this week at its Innovation Symposium in Washington is so interesting.
That would be what the German firm calls Dedicated Short-Range Technology (DSRT), which "builds an information bridge from car to car'' and ''helps to optimize traffic flow and appreciably enhances traffic safety.''
It also might be used to import the latest movie or music, but that's not the key purpose in the company's mind.
Using research work done by DCX's Research and Technology Center near Stanford University in Palo Alto, which is just south of San Francisco, the system allows a ''dynamic driving demonstration of broadband car-to-car communication'' between a Mercedes-Benz E-Class and a Dodge Durango.
DCX is not the only company working on this system, but it is the first firm to do a test out in public.
The DSRC technology allows vehicles to talk to each other or to ''stations'' on the side of the road. This can help with overall traffic flow because information from a vehicle that encounters a "critical situation such as congestion, fog, ice or an accident'' can be passed on to all road users in the immediate vicinity of the danger spot so they can slow down or take precautions. Traffic even farther away would also be notified, allowing drivers a chance to avoid the scene entirely.
DSRC-equipped vehicles can communicate directly with one another and make it possible, for example, to transmit braking signals back over several vehicles, "giving drivers early warning that they might soon have to brake."
Along with the safety alerts, digital music and movies, DSRC could even supply map updates for the on-board navigation system.
In this information network, each vehicle can take on the role of a sender, receiver or router. "It allows a chain of information to be passed on,'' DCX says, "like a relay race. With the aid of this process, known as multi-hopping, information can be spread further to cover a substantial distance."
The data exchange between vehicles is made possible by ad-hoc networks, which are short-distance connections that are "spontaneously created between the vehicles as the need arises and can organize themselves without the help of any external infrastructure."
Technoids will be thrilled to learn that DCRS uses Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology to transmit data at 5.9 Gigahertz over a distance of up to a kilometre.
The DCX technology is said to represent "a further significant milestone towards realizing the Vision of Accident-free Driving."
According to investigations by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 88 percent of all rear-end accidents are the result either of inattention on the part of the driver or of travelling too closely to the vehicle in front. DCX thinks that DCRS can help prevent such accidents, or at least reduce their severity.
DaimlerChrysler is working with the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and California, Florida and Michigan to prepare demonstration tests of vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.
Working through the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration initiative, DOT is expected to select a set of locations for a series of progressively more integrated tests from 2005 through the end of the decade.
The Vehicle IT & Services Research department in Palo Alto focuses on technologies and applications for infotainment, vehicle relationship management and communication-based driver information and driver support systems. The team of approximately 20 research scientists and engineers at the facility identify new technological trends, develop them further and then implement them in prototypes. The objective is to rapidly equip DaimlerChrysler vehicles with innovations that offer clear customer utility.
photo:DaimlerChrysler AG
That would be what the German firm calls Dedicated Short-Range Technology (DSRT), which "builds an information bridge from car to car'' and ''helps to optimize traffic flow and appreciably enhances traffic safety.''
It also might be used to import the latest movie or music, but that's not the key purpose in the company's mind.
Using research work done by DCX's Research and Technology Center near Stanford University in Palo Alto, which is just south of San Francisco, the system allows a ''dynamic driving demonstration of broadband car-to-car communication'' between a Mercedes-Benz E-Class and a Dodge Durango.
DCX is not the only company working on this system, but it is the first firm to do a test out in public.
The DSRC technology allows vehicles to talk to each other or to ''stations'' on the side of the road. This can help with overall traffic flow because information from a vehicle that encounters a "critical situation such as congestion, fog, ice or an accident'' can be passed on to all road users in the immediate vicinity of the danger spot so they can slow down or take precautions. Traffic even farther away would also be notified, allowing drivers a chance to avoid the scene entirely.
DSRC-equipped vehicles can communicate directly with one another and make it possible, for example, to transmit braking signals back over several vehicles, "giving drivers early warning that they might soon have to brake."
Along with the safety alerts, digital music and movies, DSRC could even supply map updates for the on-board navigation system.
In this information network, each vehicle can take on the role of a sender, receiver or router. "It allows a chain of information to be passed on,'' DCX says, "like a relay race. With the aid of this process, known as multi-hopping, information can be spread further to cover a substantial distance."
The data exchange between vehicles is made possible by ad-hoc networks, which are short-distance connections that are "spontaneously created between the vehicles as the need arises and can organize themselves without the help of any external infrastructure."
Technoids will be thrilled to learn that DCRS uses Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology to transmit data at 5.9 Gigahertz over a distance of up to a kilometre.
The DCX technology is said to represent "a further significant milestone towards realizing the Vision of Accident-free Driving."
According to investigations by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 88 percent of all rear-end accidents are the result either of inattention on the part of the driver or of travelling too closely to the vehicle in front. DCX thinks that DCRS can help prevent such accidents, or at least reduce their severity.
DaimlerChrysler is working with the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and California, Florida and Michigan to prepare demonstration tests of vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.
Working through the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration initiative, DOT is expected to select a set of locations for a series of progressively more integrated tests from 2005 through the end of the decade.
The Vehicle IT & Services Research department in Palo Alto focuses on technologies and applications for infotainment, vehicle relationship management and communication-based driver information and driver support systems. The team of approximately 20 research scientists and engineers at the facility identify new technological trends, develop them further and then implement them in prototypes. The objective is to rapidly equip DaimlerChrysler vehicles with innovations that offer clear customer utility.
photo:DaimlerChrysler AG