A research project from Ford has shown that LTE is suitable for time-critical automotive communication applications.
Tests of the CoOperative Cars Extended (CoCarX) research project--which aims to develop infrastructure to enable communications between vehicles--were demonstrated last week in Dusseldorf, Germany, using Vodafone's LTE network. An emergency braking maneuver was performed on a Frod S-Max test car, and the LTE network immediately sent a hazard warning to signal another Ford S-Max that was equipped with the ability to receive the information. The signal propagation time measured a sub-100 millisecond, which is considered low enough for traffic safety applications.
CoCarX also demonstrated that a video stream could be transmitted into cars via LTE to show entertainment possibilities. Ford likes the fact that one LTE connection can be used for multiple services at the same time with QoS and priority attached to the streams.
Ford believes these types of vehicle communications could reduce the number of accidents, assist in easing road congestion, which in turn would reduce CO2 emissions.
"It is 'only' a research project where we successfully tested that LTE can be used for car to car communication. At this stage there are no concrete product plans," Monika Wagener, head of communications at Ford Research told Telecoms.com.
Ford and AT&T announced an agreement in March to wirelessly connect the Ford Focus Electric, Ford's first all-electric passenger car. Through the new MyFord Mobile smartphone app, using the embedded AT&T wireless connection, Ford Focus Electric vehicle owners will have the ability to send and receive data about their car providing command and control of vehicle settings while away from it.
For more:
- see this Telecoms.com article
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