Networking Cars !

This would be a big paradigm shift in our day to day lives. The idea is that all cars should be able to communicate with each other and to roadside Tx/Rx stations.

This month's IEEE's newsletter "The Institute" describes the standards for "car talk".

In the new world of networked cars this will be the scenario, your car will be aware of all the cars around it, their speeds, acceleration, deceleration, braking etc. If the car in the other lane tries to move into your lane, your car being in its blindspot, both the cars will recognize that situation and avoid the collision (by alerting the drivers perhaps).
As your car passes by a roadside information pole, it will be updated with the traffic conditions up ahead. Accidents on a road, major blockages and all such related information will be beamed to your car and you will be able to take a decision on an alternate route.

Sounds great !!!

To enable this scenario new standards have been developed and are called the IEEE 1609 suite of WAVE standards. WAVE here stands for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment.

One of its promises is a simple technology change about which I think a lot (I almost led myself to believe that it was my new idea.) This simple idea is the idea of the traffic light signals being more than visual. Directional radio waves emitted by the traffic lights can "speak" to one's car and inform about whether it is ok or not to cross the intersection. WAVE will enable this simple idea.

If the system is integrated with the engine controls, the police might be able to over ride the car controls completely and take over the car of the runaway driver and stop it safely.

There is always a price to pay for new changes. This system will not only mean that a monetary price will have to be paid to have all that infrastructure in place but there will also be a loss of privacy, perhaps.

Security of the data will have to be a key concern. It must not be possible for one car to purposefully mislead the other car; or for some prankster to interfere with the waves of traffic lights.

The possibilities seem endless and so does the abuse. But nevertheless it sounds exciting.

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