How to create a safer city for drivers and pedestrians by sensing movements and avoiding accidents? That seems to be researchers’ main concern when they showcase a new automotive technology – and that seems to be the case with Suzuki’s and IIT Hyderabad’s announcement last week in India.
The Japanese car manufacturer and the Indian institute have teamed up to investigate how futuristic Vehicle-to-Everything – or V2X – communication technology would work in the country. V2X would enable vehicles to share real-time information about location, for example, and help reduce traffic incidents or road congestion.
The companies have developed prototype vehicles showcasing five use cases that could be adopted down the road:
- Ambulance alerting system: The sensing system alerts car drivers about an approaching emergency vehicle and its path through V2X communication. It helps the driver to safely plan maneuvers and make way for an emergency vehicle. The alert system will also share minute details like the distance between the vehicles on a real-time basis.
- Wrong-way driver alerting system: Car drivers get a pre-alert about the existence of a driver approaching on the wrong side of the road using V2X communication.
- Pedestrian alerting system: Using V2X communication, this system alerts car drivers about pedestrians nearby who could be coming in the way of the car. This will help the drivers to take precautionary measures to avoid a potential collision.
- Motorcycle alerting system: Car drivers learn through V2X communication about a fast-moving 2-wheeler approaching from a blind spot and likely to collide. Real-time information is shared with the driver about the distance and direction of the approach.
- Road condition alerting system: The driver receives an alert of bad road conditions and cautions the driver to tread carefully ahead in the journey.
- Car as a computer: Enables all interested car users to share the idle computing capacity of the microprocessor in the car when it is not being used for driving
The prototypes were presented at the IIT Hyderabad campus. Representatives from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Indian government also attended the event.
