Networked cars driving transportation vision.
'Machine to machine' communication is central to idea.
The day may come when we all donate our cars to the Kidney Foundation for scrap metal and take the bus.
Or, a monorail grid system may cover our cities and allow us to walk a few blocks to summon a personal transporter pod that looks like a ski gondola. But until that happens, most of us are going to have personal automobiles.
A group of smart people met in Geneva recently to ponder how cars can be made safer, more comfortable and more eco-friendly.
They call their mega-project "The Fully Networked Car," a reminder that the horseless carriage has really turned into a computer on wheels. Tadao Saito, chief technology officer at Toyota's Infotech Centre in Tokyo, cited car-tech examples such as vehicle stability control, radar cruise control, and tire-pressure monitors. One could add GPS, OnStar, and yes, even good old radar detectors.
However, according to Saito, the real potential of the fully networked car is just about to reveal itself. He believes that around 2010, global telecommunication infrastructure will begin to change, including the switch from analogue to digital TV, the expanded internet addressing scheme called IPv6, and the migration of traditional networks to internet protocol.
He also argued this is a crucial time to think about putting telecommunications in vehicles. If cars are going to be so smart, they may as well talk to each other and to things around them like the highway.
Some of the features Saito and his colleagues envision include intersection safety warning and collision avoidance, emission management, and even dynamic ridesharing. It all revolves around what he calls "machine to machine" communication, with communication gear in vehicles and the highway invisibly doing all the work.
Russell Shields, co-founder and chair of U.S.-based software maker Ygomi LLC, sees this as good news for future eco-friendly cars. He noted that vehicle communications can make electric vehicles more attractive to consumers by addressing issues such as limited driving range and sparse recharging infrastructure. So, your electric car would not only know how much juice it has, and how far it can go under current driving conditions, it could also locate a good place to recharge or grab a new battery.
Shields also raised the possibility of drivers benchmarking themselves against others in the same kind of vehicle, comparing their "driving style and habits with the most efficient ones by vehicle make and model.”
People who pay the fuel bills, like taxi and trucking fleet owners, might find this information very compelling - to the chagrin of lead-footed drivers.
Shields envisioned a system that would automatically adjust a car's throttle and transmission for upcoming hills and curves, based on data obtained from a telematics system. He claims this could result in three-percent fuel mileage improvement even without driver prompts, and a 9- to 16-percent improvement if the driver is coached to adjust speed and acceleration.
Shields also said that since manufacturer testing of vehicles is done in a rarefied, lab-like environment, it's usually wrong. With real-world information gained from these e-talking cars, carmakers could gain valuable insights. Heaven knows, they need some.
But what fun is a safe and fuel-efficient car if you can't enjoy being in it? Other researchers are hard at work to improve the in-car experience. Jean-Pierre Jallet of NXP Semiconductors discussed active noise-cancellation technology for automotive interiors. Think of those pricey headsets people bring on to airplanes to drown out background noise and apply the same principles to the roof and seats of your 2012 model-year dream car.
Of course, there are security concerns inherent in relying on vehicular-communication technology. At the very least, your car might rat you out and disclose your location to people you would rather not know this information.
Even more sinister possibilities abound, according to Panos Papadimitratos, of SeVeCom, Europe's secure vehicular-communication (VC) project. He notes that the rich set of tools VC offers can be abused. "For example, attackers could announce non-existent dangerous or congested road conditions, misleading drivers and causing traffic jams; or drivers could modify their cars to transmit messages as emergency vehicles (ambulances, police cars) and illegitimately have free passage, as unsuspected drivers slow down and yield."
Underlying many of these presentations is the growing realization that drivers should not be unnecessarily distracted from their primary task. According to the Canada Safety Council, driver distraction in its various forms contributes to an estimated 20 to 30 percent of all collisions.
Even without high-tech toys, a 2003 study co-commissioned by the council found that three-quarters of Canadian drivers "admit to having multi-tasked while driving ... eating, reading, using a cellphone or even shaving."
Hence the rise of C2C (car to car) and C2X (car to something else, such as the highway) communication, to give drivers everywhere the benefits of technology, while keeping eyes on the road.
But, have no fear, the internet will worm its way into future cars somehow! Texas-based ATX Group thinks people will definitely want to do some limited websurfing in their cars. They're pushing for a whole new domain just for automotive telematics sites - the "dot car."
The idea is that websites using the .car extension will not only take device appearance and specific size into account, but also will include specific add-ons that will enable web designers to create automotive embedded applications.
No word yet on technology to swat that pesky fly, stifle that sudden sneeze, or silence that unruly child. Maybe if you turn up the sound in your active noise-cancelling cocoon, you can learn to stop worrying, and let your car talk to its friends in peace.
(Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)
