Nissan testing car-to-car communication system
Beginning this October and running through March 2008, Nissan will be equipping 2,000 drivers with an experimental system that aims to make Japan's roads a safer place to be.
The in-car system will gather signals from a variety of stationary objects, including traffic lights and electricity poles, estimate the vehicle's speed and warn drivers of impending disasters. If the system coordinates everything properly, the driver will be alerted when they exceed the speed limit in a school zone or if another motorist is about to blow through a red light.
All this is in an effort by the Japanese government to institute an intelligent transportation system that will reduce crashes throughout the country, beginning in 2010. Both Honda and Toyota are joining in the development of the system, which will also utilize mobile phones to judge speed, identify congestion and suggest alternate routes to avoid being bogged down in traffic.
How much of the system will be utilized for the above and how much will be bastardized into some Orwellian nightmare remains to be seen. We'll just admit that we'd be hard-pressed to 'volunteer' for such a study.
[Source: The Auto Channel]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jiminy Cricket 4:17PM (9/16/2006)
Ooops, my door is ajar.
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Mal Fuller 4:51PM (9/16/2006)
That's JUST what we need on US highways, a system to alert us to impending danger. Just being on the highway exposes us to impending danger, the Nissan system would be screaming at us all the time, at least, that is, until traffic stopped moving. In Nissan's dreams.
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Frank 6:02PM (9/16/2006)
What parameters the system will monitor? "gather signals from a variety of stationary objects, including traffic lights and electricity poles" sounds too vaguely.
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&& 6:35PM (9/16/2006)
Hey Frank, my Nissan's nav system is telling me you're low on gas and may stall at any time. Just thought you should know.
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Ethan84ae 10:47PM (9/16/2006)
Will the messages you can send vary by State? I can think of a few choice phrases that are New Jersey specific.
-Ethan
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Jaymez 9:14PM (9/16/2006)
What a dumbass idea.
Officer: "What's the problem here?"
Motorist:"Ossifer, my car didn' tell me to slow down for that light"
Car: "You called me a piece of shit this morning when I asked for a fuel injector cleaning. I'd rather be dead than haul your unthankful ass around anymore."
Motorist: "But! But! The Three Laws!"
Car: "You still had control over the situation. I just kept my mouth shut. I can't hurt you, but, I can let you hurt yourself."
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John 9:12PM (9/16/2006)
Could it shut off the motor of a tailgater?
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Carlton 9:14PM (9/16/2006)
So there are as many stupid drivers in Japan as there are in the US? Good, I'm glad we don't have the market cornered on ignorance.
Just another toy for people who are too dumb to pay attention or know where they are going.
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N Z K 1:50PM (9/17/2006)
Big problem: Information overload for the driver. In all likelihood, drivers using this system will be bombarded with so much information that they will learn to tune it out, leaving us all exactly where we started, with the exception of no longer having the money we paid for the system.
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J.Rutt (electronic designer) 7:56PM (9/17/2006)
It's not enough, add pedestrians, cyclists, etc. being plotted from PIR detectors and transmitted to vehicles entering the area being traversed, for avoidance and alert information!
A small display showing vehicles approaching from hills, blind corners, etc. built from a receive matrix with the driven vehicle in the centre and the road layout moving through the image as the progress is being made. Pre-processed hazards being differentially coloured and highlighted, accompanied by an acoustic indication where required.
This is not hard to do, and could allow the emergency services better progress through an already overcrowded road system.
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Jon 2:53PM (9/18/2006)
I agree with a lot of your statements, but also see another side of this.
Last week my girlfriend and I were driving home from a family dinner a little after midnight. The freeway was pretty empty except for 1 car 50 yards or so infront of us. I have really good eyes and saw some taillights a mile or so up the freeway and told her to slow down. When we came up on the lights there were 5 or 6 cars stopped on the side of the freeway. All of a sudden the car infront of us (who hadn't slowed as much as we had) swerved to its left and almost hit one of the parked cars. When he did, I saw a car that was upside down in the lane we were travelling in, but facing perpendicular to the road (meaning we were looking at it's driver's side door). Because the car's lights were shining to towards the sides of the freeway it was really hard to see until you were right on top of it. Had we not slowed down as much as we had, we very easily could've hit it.
I could definitely see a system such as this could serve as early warning for possible disaster such as this. It's all about how much or how little the system warns you of.
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mphoward7 8:01PM (9/18/2006)
Right now, the US Department of Transportation is dickering with the car companies about what such a system would look like in the United States. The system will be based on dedicated short range communications (DSRC) technology in the 5.9 GHz range, a part of the spectrum set aside by the FCC for vehicle-to-vehicle (v-2-v) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (or "roadside") (v-2-i) communications to improve safety and mobility. Unlike Japan, DOT will not dictate to the car companies, and any solution will have to be acceptable to all 50 states and to the majority of the automakers. See http://www.vehicle-infrastructure.org/ for more information.
Since the safety objective is the highest priority, systems will have to consider driver workload, distraction, etc. -- plus, the systems have to fit into the automakers' brand differentiation and customer relations management strategies.
Don't expect anything right away -- but we could see a rollout of on-board equipment and roadside units for safety and traveler information as soon as 2011.
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gs 11:37AM (9/19/2006)
This is another attemt to take control away from drivers and create a perfect police state.
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selihcra 9:52PM (9/19/2006)
It is a car-to-road communication system, not a car-to-car system.
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