The Fed's futuristic Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) may be mired in budget deficits and bureaucracy. But GM has a plan to leapfrog the massive infrastructure required for ITS to become a reality by leveraging smartphone connectivity and apps to make roads safer and car's smarter.
This week at the ITS World Congress in Orlando, GM debuted technology that uses smartphone apps that integrate with a vehicle's electronics and a portable transponder to communicate with other drivers, the surrounding infrastructure and even pedestrians. The connectivity three-way is then used to warn of slow or stalled vehicles, slippery road surfaces, driver's slamming on the brakes, sharp curves and intersections and stoplights ahead.
GM also used the occasion of ITS World Congress to predict that partially autonomous vehicles could be ready by the middle of this decade, and that more sophisticated self-driving vehicles will hit the road by 2020.
GM has been testing connected-car technology that uses a transponder that's about the size of a portable navigation system and has its own screen as well as smartphone apps tied to a car's sensors and screens. Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) technology is used to exchange data between the devices, with a range of about on-quarter of a mile. DSRC capability allows the sending and receiving information from other vehicles, connected infrastructure such as traffic lights and construction crews and pedestrians and bicyclists that carry a smartphone with the app.
The technology's location awareness could allow the driver of a vehicle that's last in line know that the bonehead one in front just slammed on the brakes for no apparent reason. Or for a clueless pedestrian busy changing tracks on an iPod and not paying attention. And that same pedestrian could get an alert via a smartphone app that he or she is about to become a hood ornament.
By being connected to the vehicle's computer system, the devices could also communicate with sensors throughout the vehicle. For example, a car's electronic stability control system could warn other connected cars of hazardous road conditions ahead.
GM says its working on embedding the necessary hardware and software into new vehicles. And with 10.2 years as the average age of U.S. vehicles, GM is also looking into ways to retrofit vehicles already on the road -- so that a '99 Chevy Suburban can be as safe inside and out as a Volt.
GM also predicted at ITS World Congress that self-driving cars aren't the stuff of science fiction and Internet search companies flush with cash, but that we could see partially autonomous vehicles by 2015 and fully self-driving vehicles by the end of the decade.
We've heard before how the existing sensors, cameras, GPS capability and other technology used in the latest advanced safety systems such as collision avoidance and lane-departure prevention can be tied together for autonomous, idiot-proof driving. Combining these systems with the latest digital maps "will allow the driver to let the vehicle concentrate on driving while he does something else."
transpower says:
08:10 AM, 10/18/11
I love technology--but I do not want a self-driving vehicle, this would take the "sport" entirely out of the experience; besides, I would trust my own skills over any automated driving system.
greenpony says:
08:58 AM, 10/18/11
transpower: The question is, do you trust the skills of other drivers over an automated driving system?