Advanced Technologies Drive Future Of Automotive Safety

The 1950s saw the introduction of automobile seat belts; in the 70s, airbags began showing up in cars.

- Bhargav TS

Electronic Stability Control technology was rolled out in the late 80s. The last decade has seen the deployment of radar and camera-based back-up assist and blind-spot warning systems.

Automotive safety experts say network technology could be the next major car safety innovation. “Decades from now, it is likely, we will look back at this time period as one in which the historical arc of transportation safety will change considerably for the better, similar to the introduction of standards for seat belts, airbags, and electronic stability control technology,” said the spokesperson of a testing agency in New Delhi.

Car manufacturers, technology companies and federal regulators have worked for almost 2 decades to develop vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, which is said to be the “game-changing” technology that allows cars to communicate digitally with one another to avoid accidents. In 2016, there were an estimated 480,652 police-reported traffic crashes in which 150,785 people were killed and 494, 624 people were injured, according to the Transport Research Wing (TRW) of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Experts say V2V technology could help avoid 70% to 80% of car accidents every year.

The road to V2V

The vision for V2V is to have a network of connected cars talking to each other, broadcasting their position, speed and status of the brakes up to 10 times per second. Vehicles would read this information about other cars on the road to calculate potential crash risks and be alerted to hazardous conditions. The car would alert the driver, or automatically engage an action, such as stopping. The same technology could power Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communication, allowing cars to communicate with traffic signals to inform drivers of how much longer a light will be green, for example. Some believe this technology could be a precursor to self-driving vehicles.