The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it plans to start a regulatory proceeding to require vehicle-to-vehicle technologies (V2V) in new cars. While NHTSA didn't mention the aftermarket, that is where the action will be near term.
The Feb. 2 announcement was about as vague as most federal agency press releases of this type. But it was more than the feds have said in the past with regard to stimulating V2V technologies. Any skeptic would point out that it will take years for NHTSA to complete any rulemaking. And when done it will contain an implementation schedule, which will give the automakers additional years in which to comply.
Then there are issues such as wireless spectrum, which NHTSA has no control over. And standards have to be established. So it’s reasonable to believe that V2V technology will start appearing in new cars in five years to a decade.
Patrick Brunett, sales director and general manager of Cohda Wireless America LLC, thinks a five-year horizon would be "really aggressive." Cohda has been working with NHTSA in Ann Arbor, Mich., on a pilot program that uses Cohda's MK4 dedicated short range communications (DSRC) radio technology, as well as similar technology from other vendors.
However, even though NHTSA did not mention the aftermarket in its announcement, it has already stated that Here I Am data messaging technologies – the heart of V2V systems – produced for the aftermarket will be able to "produce safety benefits through reduced crashes sooner than through original equipment manufacturer (OEM) embedded systems only."
V2V communications enables a vehicle to sense threats and hazards with a 360-degree awareness of the position of other vehicles and the threat or hazard they present; calculate risk; issue driver advisories or warnings; and take pre-emptive actions to avoid and mitigate crashes.
Debra Bezzina, senior program manager, University of Michigan Transportation Institute, said the NHTSA safety pilot is testing two kinds of aftermarket devices: a vehicle awareness device (VAD) and an aftermarket safety device (ASD). The VAD is only a transmitter. It transmits the basic safety message, which includes data such as position, speed and heading. It does not have any interaction with the driver in the way of safety applications. Of the 2,800-plus vehicles in safety pilot 2,450 vehicles were equipped with a VAD.
There are a total of 300 ASDs composed of a global positioning system (GPS) antenna, DSRC antenna and a speaker. The ASDs that are deployed have three safety applications: forward collision warning, curve speed warning, and emergency electronic brake lights. Of the 300 ASDs deployed, 100 have a sophisticated data acquisition system (DAS). The DAS includes a forward scene camera, a cabin camera, a cabin microphone, a ranging system, GPS, an inertial measurement unit and two rear scene cameras.
Brunett has watched that pilot closely. He said that his company’s MK4 product technology could be used by vendors such as Audiobox as the guts of an aftermarket product. Cohda's MK4 product has not been commercialized for either the OEM or aftermarket. It is an expensive piece of developmental equipment that is too expensive for the marketplace, at least at the moment. But Brunett says Cohda has been talking with Tier 1 aftermarket vendors about adapting the Cohda technology.
"They are absolutely interested," he says. "We want the aftermarket to supply these devices in vehicles, so when OEMs put them in new vehicles those vehicles have a lot more vehicles to talk to."
The challenge is for an aftermarket supplier to make a V2V product interesting enough to consumers so that the appeal doesn't rest solely on its safety benefits.
"We've all heard the argument that safety doesn't sell," he says. But DSRC radios can be used for more than safety. They have other channels.
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