China leading the way in 'talking' car safety, says researcher

If cars communicated with each other, many road accidents could be avoided. Professor Huang Liusheng, from the University of Science and Technology of China, is leading a national research project to make cars "talk", not just among themselves, but with the road and even the internet. The potential is huge. China is the world's largest car market and the central government is considering an ambitious plan to equip every car with devices to send and receive messages.
 

The problems, in general, fall into two categories: latency and reliability. Let's take braking as an example. A driver stamps on the brakes on a highway. The event must be immediately broadcast to vehicles nearby, such as those within 200 metres. Other vehicles must interpret the signal and make the proper response. From the occurrence of an event to the implementation of the adjustment, it all must be done in a few milliseconds. That's quite a technical challenge to engineers and scientists. Meanwhile, the signal must remain high quality in various environments.
 

Latency has been reduced to a very low level, enough for practical use. The problem has almost been solved. The reliability of wireless communication between vehicles has also increased significantly in recent years. But some technical issues remain and they are not easy to overcome. For instance, if a vehicle ahead brakes, but it's in another lane, how should my vehicle respond? How can my car know whether the braking vehicle was steering into my lane to avoid an obstacle in its way? These are problems that have to be solved before mass application of the technology.