Cohda Steps Up for Connected Test, Smart City Challenge

Burney Simpson

Australia-based Cohda Wireless is providing its hardware and software for the $50 million Smart City Challenge and for a connected vehicle test in South Carolina sponsored by US Ignite.

In the Smart City Challenge, Cohda and its partner NXP Semiconductors will jointly provide to the winning city their Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) modules and development tools.

The wireless modules allow vehicles to securely exchange information with each other and road infrastructure. Proponents of connected vehicle technology say it will lead to safer roads as drivers and their vehicles receive information on road, weather, and traffic conditions.

The Smart City Challenge is a national competition led by the U.S. Department of Transportation designed to develop the connected city of the future. The DOT announced seven finalists in March – Austin, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Portland, and San Francisco.

NXP, a supplier of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology, last year reported it owned 23 percent of Cohda (See “Lear’s Arada Buy Expands V2X Line”). Cisco Systems is also an investor in Cohda.

SOUTH CAROLINA TEST

The connected vehicle test on 10 miles of Interstate I-85 in South Carolina will use Cohda’s MK5 onboard units and roadside units for V2V and V2I communications.

Clemson University is overseeing the test on the South Carolina Connected Vehicle Testbed (SC-CVT) near the school’s International Center for Automotive Research (ICAR) campus in Greenville.

Cohda says its products are used in more than 60 per cent of all V2X field trials worldwide.

Sponsor US Ignite is a not-for-profit backed by the White House Office of Science and Technology and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Transportation is one of its six priority areas.

The I-85 project received a $600,000 grant last year from the NSF. The Foundation reports that the U.S. Department of Transportation will “likely require” by 2020 that all new vehicles be connected vehicles “capable of communicating with other vehicles and roadside infrastructure through wireless communications.”

The Program Manager is John Brassil of the NSF’s Computer and Network Systems division. The Lead Investigator is James Martin, an associate professor with Clemson’s School of Computing.