Talking roads, communicating vehicles

Within a couple of years, receiving real-time information regarding the conditions of the road and emergencies will be just a regular service available on motorways. The infrastructure will be established correspondingly, and the vehicles will be equipped with proper on-board devices. The connected cars will be able to ensure higher traffic safety, compared to the safety level available right now, which will also enhance the development of driverless solutions. 

Different driver assistance systems are already available on the market, which can take over certain activities from the driver, hence facilitating the process of driving. These tools are based on sensors, and they are relying on the data of sensor systems, which can assist the human perception during bad visibility, for instance, and accordingly inform the driver. This is established by the communication inside the vehicle. However, the industry is already working on the solutions, which could create the proliferation of fast and direct communication among vehicles. Dr. László Bokor, head of the working group on vehicle communications pointed out that the extensive data exchange between vehicles or between a car and the infrastructure (the so-called vehicle-to-anything, or V2X data transfer) is an essential tool in enhancing human perception and supporting autonomous transportation. By sharing the detected information of the different vehicles and infrastructure elements, cooperative awareness can be established among the participants of the traffic, and cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) services relying on that shared consciousness can further enhance safety, effectiveness, and the comfort level of the transportation.
Within the EU, a single cross-border C-ITS system is already under preparation, which can provide legal, technical, standardization, and infrastructural framework for the implementation. The system is harmonized by the C-ROADS project, and the functional application is based on the connection of – Wi-Fi-based ad-hoc networks – cellular networks – cloud services – traffic management and information services – road-side units – on-board units. According to Dr. László Bokor, the implementer in Hungary is the Hungarian Public Road Non-profit PLC., which involved the Department of Networked Systems and Services of Budapest University of Technology and Economics as an advisory body.

Launching the day-1 services of C-ROADS is just around the corner (2020-21). However, it took approximately ten years of hard work to set up all the necessary installations. The general public has to understand that a particular infrastructure had to be built, which can support safe operation in extreme circumstances. Hence it is very stable, however, it is also flexible enough for future upgrades. For that, an extensive standardization process was required. Therefore the different devices, together with the components of the software, had to be perfected following these new standards – pointed out the head of the working group. The day-1 service level means that the on-board devices will regularly receive and share status information from/with the roadside infrastructure and from/with each other, and inform the driver by displaying warning signs. Just providing this information will be enough to extensively increase traffic safety already, since the driver can gain knowledge of certain information, which could not be detected from the actual position of the vehicle. In case fog or ice occurs on individual sections of the motorway, the connected infrastructure, and the cars can display a warning sign kilometers in advance. Hence the driver can carefully approach the situation. The interconnection also assists the movement of platooning vehicles. It can manage traffic situations in intersections. At later (more advanced) stages of the development, the vehicle communication will be able to share sensor, intention and coordination data as well to assist the operation and to coordinate the navigation of the autonomous vehicles and transportation in general, by integrating such advanced cooperation into their systems.

The current version of the standardized and implementation-ready C-ITS solutions communicate directly on assigned radio frequencies, with its “counterparts” on road infrastructure and in other vehicles, and similarly to the navigation systems, it is operated by the state. There are several products available on the market with which any car can be equipped. Dr. László Bokor also added that several car manufacturers had committed themselves to equip selected car models with these technologies (e.g., the primary solutions of the C-ROADS project) shortly, hence they will be able to use this advanced technology.

Jámbor Gyula

Photo: Iró Zoltán