by Damon Lavrinc of www.wired.com
Smartphones are too often a colossal distraction to motorists, but
Honda sees a way of using them to protect pedestrians from inattentive
drivers.
The automaker hopes to tap into pedestrians’ phones to alert passing
drivers to their presence. The technology — dubbed Vehicle-to-Pedestrian
— uses a smartphone’s GPS and dedicated short range communications
(DSRC) to warn drivers when a pedestrian steps out from behind a parked
car or other obstruction. A light flashes on the dashboard to tell the
driver of an approaching pedestrian, while the hapless walker gets an
alert on their smartphone.
The DSRC system can be deployed through a dedicated app with the
technology operating on the 5.9GHz band set aside for automotive
applications. Honda’s not alone in pursuing this. General Motors is using the same tech
to develop its own pedestrian detecting technology. But Honda is taking
it a step further. In addition to the pedestrian detection tech, Honda
is also testing Vehicle-to-Motorcycle systems using the same DSRC to
alert drivers of a motorcycle outside their field of vision.
Honda is joined by several other automakers working with the
University of Michigan through the Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot
Program conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation on the
technology, and if all goes well, these systems could be deployed in the
next several years.
Source;
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/09/honda-pedestrian/
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