A couple of years ago, the idea of self-driving cars was just a concept but that has been changing with the constant evolution of V2X hardware and technology. V2X is a vehicular communication system that supports the transfer of information from a vehicle to other entities in a traffic system.
Entities could include other cars, motorists, pedestrians, road signs, cyclists – basically anything that can affect a vehicle. In simple terms, V2X technology covers how smart cars ‘talk’ with their surroundings. V2X has been specifically engineered to ensure fast, efficient and safe operations of smart cars.
Development of the Technology
The biggest issue of cellular vehicle to everything is getting smart cars to recognize what is around them. When it comes to doing simple things fast, computers are unrivaled.
However, when it comes to getting them to see a real-world object and correctly identify it – that’s a whole other story.
You as a driver can look ahead and see a deer perhaps crossing the road. This seemingly trivial task can be a tad challenging for a smart car. The best way to explain this is captcha tests. See how fast you select all images containing a bridge? Yeah, computers or robots for that matter would struggle to do that. Even the smallest of deviations of an image from what’s in their datasets could completely throw them off.
Utility of the V2x Technology
Development of v2x hardware solutions and technologies has been the way around that.
When cars communicate with everything around them, they can broadcast what it is to other cars while at the same time receive information pertaining to what is around them. This constant communication and exchange of information cuts down the time it takes a car to try and figure out what something is and dedicate those precious seconds to enhance traffic safety for everyone concerned.
Cellular V2X
C2VX uses 4G or 5G to send and receive data – although that may have already been revealed by the term cellular. The best technology to date is of course 5G because it is super-fast and has low latency. Being fast could literally be the difference between life and death where life or death time-sensitive decisions need to be made.
Types of Cellular Vehicle to Everything Technology
Vehicle to vehicle
Cars can’t exactly see each other or wave at each other like we humans do while driving. Vehicle to vehicle communication enables smart vehicles to know where other cars in the vicinity are located. Another plus to V2V communication is it allows cars to perform checks and measurements that are nigh on impossible for humans.
A classic example of V2X hardware in all its glory is the fact that a vehicle can send and receive information in a 360-degree radius with exactly zero blind spots. Human drivers would need about a gazillion mirrors to achieve the same. With no blind spots, smart cars don’t have to rely on visual detection to keep track of what is where.
On top of basic data like a particular car being 50 meters ahead, cars can also share other details like current speed, destination, plans to change lanes, and more.
Armed with all this information, your car can make educated decisions on the spot and inform other cars of its plans while at it.
V2V communication keeps getting better and better: a smart car can send all this information about 10 times a second. That’s faster than you can say Jack Robinson. In a nutshell, your car will have all this information and share it every one tenth of a second. Can you do that?
Vehicle to Infrastructure
CV2xhttps://auto-talks.com/technology/dsrc-vs-c-v2x/ technology covers road-based infrastructure as well.
The best way to explain this would be v2x hardware solutions and technology that enable smart cars to detect the status or color of traffic lights. Here is another way to approach it:
Engineers could get creative and get the traffic light to talk to the smart car instead. It can also inform cars of its position, its status and when next it will be changing to help smart cars make the best decisions.
Another important piece of any traffic system is parking spots and slots. We can all agree how stressful driving around looking for a parking spot is – especially in busy urban areas. Now imagine the parking lot telling your car where there is an open spot and your car parking itself – how cool is that?
