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Friday, July 06, 2007 A Smarter CarIBM wants to improve communication between cars, roads, and drivers. By Clark Boyd
Vehicles are getting smarter all the time, thanks to a combination of sensor and wireless communications technologies. Car manufacturers say that tomorrow's drivers will be assisted by a wealth of safety information generated by vehicles that can talk to not only each other but to the roadway itself. But with so much data often comes information overload. And that's why computing giant IBM has launched a project to help the driver get the right information at the right time. IBM calls the research initiative collaborative driving, and the company says it's designed to prevent accidents and reduce traffic congestion. The work will be spearheaded by the IBM lab in Haifa, Israel. "More than a million people die on the roads every year around the world, and people waste a lot of time and money sitting in traffic jams," says IBM researcher Oleg Goldshmidt. "You would like to help with both problems in any way possible." For IBM, that doesn't necessarily mean creating new safety gadgets. Instead, it means bringing the principles of computer science to bear on the different systems already making their way into vehicles. "We start with the assumption that in a relatively short time, vehicles and roads will be equipped with sensor and communications technologies," Goldshmidt says. He notes that there are already projects in the United States, Europe, and Japan that are testing roadway sensors that can wirelessly relay information about accidents, traffic congestion, and weather to an onboard interface in the car. "Let's say your car is now more fully aware of what's going on around it. The question is what information is most important to the driver, and how that information gets relayed.." Goldshmidt says that through a combination of computer modeling and driving simulations, the company can better determine how all the data generated by today's high-tech cars and roadways can be gathered and organized, then processed and prioritized in a way that's most helpful to the driver. He uses the example of two smart cars approaching an intersection: "Maybe there's an algorithm that figures out the safest, most efficient procedure to let those vehicles pass through without danger or conflict. We're trying to find that algorithm." IBM isn't the only company searching for that algorithm. Jim Misener, transportation-safety-research program leader at Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways, administered by the University of California, Berkeley, says that there is an entire field devoted to this kind of research: it's called arbitration. He points to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety Systems. The IVBSS system, Misener notes, "takes data from autonomous sensors" and then tries to prioritize, or arbitrate, among the various pieces of information. But figuring out how to prioritize all this road data is no small task, according to Mike Gardner, director of Intelligent Systems Research at Motorola. His group has been dealing with similar issues as it tries to develop handheld devices that can interact with smart-car technologies. "A smart vehicle has to collect all this raw sensor data, fuse it, and then analyze it with something like pattern recognition," says Gardner. "Then it has to decide, 'Is that a person in front of the car, or is that just fog?'" |
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Keeping Drunks off the Road
08/07/2007
Comments
farmboy on 07/06/2007 at 12:47 PM
2
evolvingwheel on 07/06/2007 at 4:05 PM
5
What could be done is to make these signal systems have more intelligent sensors, which could talk to indivudal cars as well. Right before the green light comes up, the sensor at the light should send a signal to the first car which could be relayed down to the car number 10 in the queue telling that it should be the last one to pass the green with a latency of 5 seconds - that should be a awareness signal enuff to trigger a better activated motion across the signal. (there could be so many more such ideas!)
http://innovech.wordpress.com
fiberman on 07/06/2007 at 4:52 PM
40
What is needed to make individual transportation safer and more efficient is a similar incentive. Today’s cars already are full of technology: microprocessors operating on networks control the driveline, handling dynamics and passive safety systems. What else do we need?
I can name a few:
1. Simpler instrument panels and controls.
Sit in your car and look at all the gages, buttons and switches. What do you really need to know? Speed and fuel level but little else. The fact that the engine management system handles all the data means you can be warned if something is needing attention. Otherwise it’s ignorable. Climate control systems are an example of how to simplify systems – set the temperature and forget it. BTW, I drive a Mini Cooper S with a neat tach which I use in front of me with digital speedo. All I need. Other info is in the central dia. But why do trucks need tachometers and readouts of voltage, temperature and oil pressure? Did you know those minor instruments are faked on some cars – not real readouts. They are there for appearances only and will not read correctly unless something is amiss!
What we need is one multimedia panel in the steering wheel or just behind it. How cool if it stayed level while the wheel turned, easy to do.
2. Better entertainment systems
In CA, reports I have seen say changing CDs is at least as dangerous as talking on a cell. The iPod is the best invention for auto entertainment since the radio. Select the tracks from the wheel-mounted controls. But if you must have a readout, make it readable and right in front of the driver.
3. Integrated cell phones. If you must talk, do it without holding the phone in one hand. And no texting.
4. Discourage eating and smoking. How many accidents have been caused by people dropping hot coffee in their crotch? How many wildfires start here in CA by people tossing lighted cigarettes out the window. I vote for smoke detectors in cars and no cupholders, but realize the futility of that request.
5. Front collision systems. If you approach the car in front too fast, you car slows or stops to prevent or reduce the severity of collisions.
6. Managed speeds. Bear with me on this one. I’ve raced sports cars most of my life and instructed for high speed tack training. I love going fast, but only on a track. There is no justification for cars that can go as fast as they do. All cars should be programmed to limit speeds: 90 mph for 30 sec, 85 mph for 5 minutes, 80 mph continuous. Like stability control, you can turn it off (for track events) but it resets and starts each time you start the car.
And while we’re at it, allow certain activities only to certain speeds. You want to drive 80, you can’t search for radio stations, dial cell numbers, etc.
cyberian on 07/07/2007 at 9:09 PM
2
If you want a max. speed, then it should be applied ACROSS THE BOARD at the manufacturing level!
But also, the integration being discussed here would seem to require LESS attention from the driver, which would then seem to be at odds with your ideas about no cupholders, no smoking, yada, yada, yada.
A LOT of people spend an inordinate percentage of their life driving hither and yon. It hardly seems "progressive" to turn back the clock on the creature comforts that we've been working so hard TOWARDS providing for drivers.
If anything, as roads and cars become more intelligent, the goal should be to allow the drivers to become LESS so, and MORE safe in the process.
fiberman on 07/09/2007 at 1:51 AM
40
The argument against limiting speed - and read again how I suggest doing it - is the same knee-jerk argument the NRA has when anyone suggests that private citizens do not need to own howitzers.
I happen to own a 143 MPH capable Mini Cooper. It replaced a BMW M3 that had many thousands of track miles on it - and was near its 155 mph limit often. I have seen 180 mph on the road 3 times. Don't know how many miles I've covered at high speeds on the autobahn or autostrada, or on the race track in my 45 years of driving.
I've also studied auto safety in detail. Speed does not kill, stupid speeding, however, has the potential to do so. I live in So CA where getting on the freeway means dodging trucks and Priuses and many others driving over 90 - typically 20 mph over the average of traffic. I have seen over 20 single car accidents in the last 5 years, generally caused by loss of control, which is generally caused by insufficient attention to the task at hand.
We all know that every American driver has exceptional capabilities, so they can ignore the realities of driving, right?
Institute the German licensing system and maybe we can all drive 100!
cyberian on 07/07/2007 at 9:00 PM
2
i-Pod anyone?
Or cell phones, PDAs, handheld game consoles, etc...It's called evolution. They should stop worrying about 'dumbing down' this IT/transportation integration stuff to the lowest common denominator, which in this case would be grandma, who still remembers outhouses and no air conditioning!
The kids coming up will be a lot more capable of adapting to whatever sensor array you provide for them than you suspect. Your problem will likely be, instead, providing them with ENOUGH data to compel them to want to pay for the extra instrumentation in the first place.
Avones on 07/08/2007 at 7:17 PM
1
I worked with fighter pilots who thought that they could attend to 10 tasks simultaneously without affecting the accuracy of their flying. (God complex!) We were able to demonstrate that 2 events occuring simultaneously in the cockpit negatively affected the accuracy of their flying. And these pilots are highly trained, tuned, flying machines.
I don't know, I'm a Human Factors specialist, so my theory is keep it simple.
fiberman on 07/09/2007 at 1:54 AM
40
mgilbir on 07/09/2007 at 5:16 PM
1