The Beach Blog

The Future of Vehicle Safety: Cars Talking to Traffic Lights and to Each Other

The all-new Ford Focus already has a number of class-leading driver assistance systems such as Active City Stop, Lane Keeping Assistance, Traffic Sign Recognition and Blind Spot Detection. But Ford isn’t done yet. The future of vehicle safety will use more vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication—something Ford is already demonstrating with its “smart intersection,” established near Ford’s Research & Innovation Centre in Dearborn, Mich., USA.

The smart intersection communicates with specially-equipped test vehicles to warn drivers of potentially dangerous traffic situations, such as when a vehicle is about to run through a red light. The intersection is outfitted with technology that can monitor traffic signals and GPS data to assess potential hazards, and then transmit the information to vehicles.

Once the information is received, the vehicle’s collision avoidance system may be able to determine whether the car will safely cross the intersection or if it needs to stop. If the system determines the need to stop and senses that the driver is not decelerating quickly enough, it issues visual and audio warnings to the driver.

In Europe, Ford’s Research & Advanced Engineering division is also contributing to various research projects in cooperation with other OEMs, suppliers, research institutes and governments in order to develop and evaluate innovative safety features that make use of V2I and V2V communication. A key part of this is the ‘Safe and Intelligent Mobility – Test Field Germany (simTD)’ project, which will run throughout 2012 around Frankfurt/Main, Germany, as a 400-vehicle field test, designed to evaluate feasibility and scalability of cooperative wireless systems in a real-world environment.

The fully-functioning smart intersection in Dearborn is clearly just the beginning of Ford’s approach to safety for the future. There are challenges still ahead, as successful deployment of cooperative systems can only be effective if all vehicles use similar equipment and “speak the same language.” Christian Ress, technical expert connectivity, Ford Research & Advanced Engineering Europe says, “That’s why it’s critical for Ford to work closely with other automakers, suppliers and governments to agree on standard communication protocols and message sets. At Ford, we would like a system for connected vehicles that works in a similar manner globally.”

Source: Ford