A consortium of car makers and equipment suppliers in Europe is developing a demonstrator system that will link moving cars together via a wireless network providing data on traffic flows and accidents from car to car.
The car2car communication consortium is putting together a specification for the system based on the 802.11p wireless networking protocol that is currently being developed in the IEEE standards body, and has been given approval for spectrum at 5.8GHz and 5.9GHz for the next three years to prove the technology.
"We have already done a lot of prototypes on 2.4GHz (using 802.11b WiFi) and we know that it works," said Rudy Meitzner, the general manager of the consortium.
The demonstrator is planned for the third quarter of next year, depending on the availability of silicon. "We would look to have the first demonstrator that is as close as possible to the standard so as soon as we get the first chipset on 11p and the radio that would be helpful." The group also works within the ETSI standards body on a standard for linking vehicles and roadside equipment.
"We are defining a technology that will be used exclusively for electronic safety in cars and trucks," he said.
But it will take several years for the standard to be integrated into production vehicles. "I would say the first expectation is after 2015 we will have a realistic product on the market in vehicles and trucks."
He also works closely with other projects in the Com-e-safety European programme on automotive safety systems. "We gather the results of that project and harmonise these to provide a kind of blueprint for the ITS landscape in Europe."
See also: Electronics Weekly's Focus on Wireless, a roundup of content related to wireless communications.