Who Is Your Car Talking To? A Look at V2V Communications

Most of us have grown accustomed to phones, tablets, and Global Positioning System (GPS) devices that talk to us—our cars, in contrast, tend to be rather taciturn. That wasn’t always the case. For a brief period in the 1980s and 1990s, an assortment of cars—from the Chrysler LeBaron to the Nissan Maxima—verbalized warnings to drivers about seat belt use and turning off their headlights. After a few years, consumers decided they didn’t want their cars to talk—so cars became nonverbal once more.

If the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has its way, cars could start talking again in the near future. They won’t be talking to us, though—they’ll be talking to each other. It might sound ominous—Will they be plotting against us?—but the stated goal of vehicle-to-vehicle communication is to keep drivers and passengers safe. When you consider that highway crashes are the second-leading cause of accidental death in the United States (surpassed in recent years only by drug-related poisonings) and the leading cause of work-related fatalities, bringing our vehicles into the conversation could make a real difference.

V2V Communication and Safety

Is it really possible that one single technological advance could prevent as many as 80 percent of all multiple-vehicle crashes? The NHTSA thinks so. The agency has worked for more than a decade with the automotive industry and academic institutions to develop vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology. In December 2016, the agency issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology on all new light-duty vehicles. The technology would provide an array of crash-avoidance applications that are expected to prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes every year by enabling vehicles to “talk” to each other.

Vehicles equipped with V2V communication capability will be able to wirelessly exchange information about the speed and position of surrounding vehicles. In addition to preventing multiple-vehicle crashes, the technology would ease traffic congestion and benefit the environment. Just two potential applications, “intersection movement assist” (IMA) and “left turn assist,” have the potential to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities by nearly half over current levels. If every vehicle in the nation were equipped with V2V technology, as many as 600,000 crashes and 270,000 injuries could be prevented each year, and 1,080 lives could be saved. Add in vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) safety applications, and the lifesaving potential would be even greater.

V2V vs. Current Crash-Avoidance Technologies

V2V communications systems use dedicated short-range radio communication (DSRC) to exchange messages containing vehicle information. They can be installed when a vehicle is manufactured, as an aftermarket device, or offered as portable devices—possibly even as smartphone apps. Vehicles using DSRC can communicate their speed, heading, and braking status to other nearby vehicles and can use information received from other vehicles to warn drivers and prevent crashes.

Some existing technologies can provide similar warnings, of course; many cars have ultrasonic sensors, cameras, and radar systems that provide collision warnings. V2V communication systems have advantages over these systems that include:

• Range. The V2V messages have a range of approximately 300 meters, which exceeds the capabilities of other types of systems by nearly twice the distance.
• Penetration. V2V technology is radio-based, meaning that it can obtain information about other vehicles that are out of sight, including vehicles that are around a corner or behind another vehicle or obstruction.

Tomorrow we’ll look at some specific crash-avoidance applications that are expected to be available using DSRC systems—as well as cybersecurity concerns.