After-market Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication
Abstract
After-market Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication
Nathan Andrade, Colin Gearty, Aaron Carpenter
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Roughly 30,000 Americans die each year from vehicle related incidents. To help alleviate this, car manufactures are constantly searching for ways to improve safety conditions for drivers. One of the biggest causes of vehicle accidents is the lack of communication between both vehicles and drivers. During a typical drive, numerous potential hazards can be witnessed by one driver that another is unaware of. Some of these potential hazards include defective headlights or directional, an open trunk, or even a loose wheel. By creating a way in which drivers are able to relay their awareness of these hazards to one another, the number of deaths caused by such could reduce greatly.
In addition to allowing drivers to communicate to one another there are also multiple advantages that could be gained by allowing the vehicles to communicate to one another directly. Communication such as this could potentially warn vehicles, and thereby warning drivers, of hazards that often occur too quickly for a driver to recognize on their own. Hazards such as these may include sudden braking or swerving, undetected vehicles in a blind spot, or even collisions in the nearby area. Incorporating these types of readings from the car’s surroundings would allow for either the car to react on its own through automation, or for the driver to have the hazard brought to their attention in time to make a difference in their reaction.
The project in this paper aims to provide this solution through an aftermarket communication system that can be added to any vehicle. The system would be stand alone, not reliant on any mobile device such as a phone or tablet. This type of messaging interface would allow users to quickly and efficiently send text messages to users in their area, but also allows for the ability the ability for the cars to communicate directly. This system would allow users to send messages to other drivers in their area using short range radio. Digital Short Range Communications(DSRC) is the standard already in place for these types of communication, so by utilizing this standard, the system is compatible with a wide variety of communications systems being produced right now. This would lay the ground work for intercommunication between autonomous vehicles and those still being manually driven, an enormous step in getting these cars on the road. This project is a prototype which could be built upon to have a profound impact on the speed with which self-driving cars are implemented.
Keywords: V2V, Communication, DSRC, Messaging, Radio Communication, Safety, Intelligent Vehicles