Autonomous driving is fast becoming a reality. Increasing driving assistance and safety features such as adaptive cruise control and lane departure warnings are already becoming commonplace. Predictive ride technology is being introduced whereby the car senses the state of the road ahead and adjusts the ride settings to maximize comfort and reduce travel sickness when driving over uneven surfaces.

McKinsey projects that by 2030 up to 15% of vehicles sold will be fully autonomous. For passengers, that is likely to mean a smooth and comfortable driverless experience – but this pushes the need to achieve all the external connectivity to meet lifestyle and/or workplace requirements.

Continue reading Connectivity challenges for next-generation autonomous cars at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

A breakthrough in autonomous vehicle communication has been achieved by researchers at the University of Warwick in the UK, who used 5G to send data speeds of 2.867gbps over-the-air to a Level 4 low-speed vehicle.

The speed record was conducted on the 28GHz millimetre wave band and is 40 times faster than current fixed-line broadband speeds – the equivalent of transmitting the full contents of a high-definition movie in the less than 10 seconds.

With vehicle communication a vital factor for a future of autonomous driving, large quantities of data will be required to be transmitted with speed.

Continue reading 5G data record for AVs set by University of Warwick at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

Ever since the first automobiles rolled onto the road, manufacturers have been introducing technology to ensure they avoid crashing into each other. But it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that innovation really moved up a gear and cars could intelligently assist drivers to keep their distance from those in front.

Adaptive cruise control was one of the first functions to appear on production cars that could truly be considered a first step toward ‘autonomous’ driving. However, it did take time – and some trial and error – to settle on a technology that worked.

In 1991, Mitsubishi dabbled with lidar by installing a system in its Debonair, but it was just a rudimentary warning system and did not regulate speed.

Continue reading The history of adaptive cruise control at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

For years, a set of niche engineers within US car companies have been testing DSRC for V2X applications, assuming it would emerge as the standard technology. They have been attending standards meetings and researching a myriad of technical issues, especially around security and latency. Most of these engineers never imagined that 4G – and now the longer-term option of 5G – would emerge as a competitor to DSRC.

“They were flatfooted by cellular V2X (C-V2X) because the car makers have never found a convincing business model for DSRC,” says Andrew Hart, director of industry research group SBD Automotive.

Continue reading C-V2X vs DSRC: Which technology is better for autonomous vehicles? at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

Models from Volvo Cars and Volvo Trucks equipped with compatible technology will soon be able to share information about road hazards with each other. When any equipped Volvo switches on its hazard lights, an anonymised alert will be sent out via the driver’s internet-connected mobile phone to all nearby Volvos. This warns drivers approaching the location and helps to avoid accidents.

Hazard Light Alert has been standard on 90 and 60 series and XC40 cars delivered in Sweden and Norway since 2016. Volvo Cars and Volvo Trucks have not been part of the same company since the car division was sold to Ford in 1999.

Continue reading Volvo Cars and Volvo Trucks partner to enable V2V communication about road hazards at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

V2X chipset specialist Autotalks has teamed with Israeli startup Griiip, which is working on a single-seat race car, to demonstrate how V2V could improve safety in professional and amateur racing. The demonstration was held on March 15, 2018 on a motorsport track in Be’er Sheva, Israel. Griiip’s G1 race cars were fitted with Autotalks’ V2X solution, based on the Craton2 chipset.

The solution is designed to understand when a race car seriously endangers the safety of other drivers – for example when a driver loses control of the car and stops in a dangerous place on the track or when a car slows down unexpectedly.

Continue reading V2V demonstrated for motorsport safety at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.