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Renesas, eTrans Systems Partner Up to Debut Connected Parking App at CES 2017

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eTrans Systems

FAIRFAX, Va. — eTrans Systems, a leading developer of software solutions for connected and automated vehicles, today announced their collaboration with semiconductor solutions provider Renesas Electronics America Inc. by delivering a parking availability solution using dedicated short range communications (DSRC) to help enable both autonomous and driver-based vehicles to easily find open parking spots.

This technology will be showcased on Renesas’ automotive fleet of vehicles during CES 2017 (Consumer Electronics Show).  This collaboration brings together the expertise of the world’s leading automotive semiconductor provider along with an innovative startup company specifically focused on Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technology solutions.

Why is this technology important?

In cities throughout the world, parking is a major issue.  It has been estimated that upwards of 30 percent of urban drivers are at any one time looking for available parking. This is a tremendous waste of both time and fuel.  eTrans’ new DSRC Parking Solution can help to eliminate this waste.

How does the DSRC Parking Solution app work?

Sensors in the parking lot can detect the availability of open spaces. When spots are available, the sensors notify the DSRC Road Side Unit (RSU), which in turn broadcasts out availability.  On-Board Units (OBUs) in the car receive the messages and then notify either the driver or the vehicle’s autonomous driving system.

“Renesas is very excited about this application, “ said Amrit Vivekanand, vice president, of Renesas Electronics America’s automotive business unit. ” We see this as an interesting use of our automobile technology in the Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) market, which is a market that Renesas is looking to further expand into.”

eTrans representatives said they look forward to try and solve the world’s parking woes together with Renesas.

“At eTrans, we see the DSRC Parking Solution as the next major piece in our Vehicle to Infrastructure application suite,” said John Estrada, CEO of eTrans Systems. “It provides an additional benefit from Connected Vehicle technology and is the foundation for solving a major urban problem.”

eTrans and Renesas plan to unveil this solution at CES 2017. For more details on the demonstration, contact John Estrada at jestrada@eTransSystems.com.

About eTrans Systems

eTrans Systems specializes in the development and deployment of autonomous and connected vehicle systems.  eTrans solutions include safety applications, mobility applications and vehicle management applications. eTrans clients include automobile OEMs, tier-1 auto suppliers and state and local governments.

NHTSA Issues New Proposed Policy on V2V Technology, Connected Vehicles

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Jennifer van der Kleut

The National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) on Tuesday proposed a new national policy that, among other things, would mandate that connected vehicle technology (V2V) be included in all new light-weight vehicles that are manufactured, establish standards for vehicle-to-vehicle messages and transmissions, and mandate that data be made available to the federal government.

The agency released an announcement in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) that detailed the ins and outs of the new policy, should be it officially adopted by the U.S. government.

Highlights of the proposed policy include:

  • The requiring of all automakers to include connected-vehicle technology (V2V) in all new light-weight vehicles;
  • A mandate that all V2V devices would use dedicated short range communications (DSRC) to transmit data, such as location, direction and speed, to nearby vehicles;
  • The mandating of across-the-board standards for vehicle-to-vehicle communications, to ensure all vehicles “speak the same language;” and
  • Rules that ensure that V2V data being transmitted is protected by strong cybersecurity measures, and not “linkable to any individual.”

NHTSA officials said the Federal Highway Institute plans to issue more formal guidance on V2V communications soon.

Federal officials said in the NPRM announcement that they felt this policy was necessary to help speed up the adoption of connected-vehicle technology to help save lives, and also to help guide auto manufacturers in how to best and most quickly begin implementing the technology into their vehicles.

“This will create an information environment in which vehicle and device manufacturers can create and implement applications to improve safety, mobility, and the environment. Without a mandate to require and standardize V2V communications, the agency believes that manufacturers will not be able to move forward in an efficient way, and that a critical mass of equipped vehicles would take many years to develop, if ever,” the NPRM stated.

“Implementation of the new standard will enable vehicle manufacturers to develop safety applications that employ V2V communications as an input, two of which are estimated to prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes and prevent over one thousand fatalities annually,” the announcement continued.

Read the full announcement online.

Read the proposed policy in its entirety online.

 

 

Land Rover Video Demos Off-Road V2V Connected SUVs

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A video from Jaguar Land Rover shows the firm’s luxury off-road SUVs conducting vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications, and automatically taking control of a vehicle when the road surface changes.

The video is posted on The Auto Channel YouTube site. It is two videos from Jaguar Land Rover pasted together, then duplicated in what appears to be a glitch. There’s is no voice over describing the activity.

The vehicles are equipped with a mix of cameras, lidar, radar and ultrasonic sound, according to engadget.  Jaguar Land Rover did not report when all the technology in the video would be available commercially.

The video shows two of the Land Rovers in an off-road test area with difficult conditions performing what the auto OEM calls ‘Connected Convoy’ research, or a form of vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications.

The demo shows a front car driving through the difficult road area and stopping after about 50 yards, where the driver decides to change his vehicle’s Terrain Response to adapt to conditions.

That change is automatically transmitted wirelessly to car 2, where the driver can decide whether to make the same change.

In another capability, car 1 travels over some rocks and hilly terrain, and the vehicle wirelessly shares wheel slip and suspension data with the rear car. In this demo, car 2 activates its Optimum Terrain Response mode to better handle the road.

The vehicles also apply technology that helps them to identify and predict upcoming road surface changes.

A camera on the front of a vehicle scans the road ahead and finds it will change from asphalt to gravel. The vehicle then prompts the driver to change the terrain response mode.

That capability is pushed further when the vehicle automatically reduces speed to adjust to a new road surface, in this case standing water about a foot deep. The vehicle then automatically returns to its previous speed when the car has driven past the water.

Jaguar Land Rover is a UK-based subsidiary of India’s Tata Motors.

Mobileye, Peloton, Savari Named Top Young Innovators

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Burney Simpson

Influential driverless firms Mobileye, Peloton and Savari have been chosen as three of the 60 young firms worldwide that are leading technology innovation.

The list of 60 Young and Reinvented Companies Set to Transform the Technology Marketplace was released recently by ABI Research, an international business research and analysis firm that covers technology.

Firms chosen were not “mega companies driving core markets” but instead were those “smaller-harder to see-young and reinvented companies that are enabling real, sustainable change from the margins of industry,” according to ABI.

Savari was chosen due to its mix of technology in the Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communications arena (V2I), said James Hodgson, industry analyst, autonomous driving and location tech, with ABI.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Savari provides onboard units for vehicles along with the street-infrastructure devices needed for V2I communication to work, said Hodgson.

And Savari has some bottom-line business connections that give it an advantage, he said.

It is on the preferred vendor list of the U.S. Department of Transportation as connected tests rollout. Plus its contract with Cadillac times well as the auto OEM prepares to release the 2017 CTS with V2V communication technology.

Mobileye bends the concept of the 60 list a bit, acknowledges Hodgson, as it is a publicly-traded firm that’s comparably larger than some of the other 60 firms.

He likes what he calls Mobileye’s realistic approach to creating a map of the world by using cameras on vehicles. Mobileye announced at the CES 2016 in January its plan to partner with GM, Volkswagen, and other auto OEMs to create maps for autonomous vehicles.

That lays the groundwork for images that can support semi-autonomous vehicles in the 2025-2030 timeframe.

In comparison, competitors like HERE seek to use LiDAR and other sensors to build maps.

“We’re not ready for that, there aren’t enough vehicles on the road with LiDAR,” argues Hodgson.

The work of Peloton also fits the realistic approach to implementing autonomous and connected technology, said Hodgson.

Peloton’s Truck Platooning System electronically couples pairs of freight-hauling trucks by using V2V communications, radar-based braking systems, and proprietary vehicle control algorithms.

Tests have shown paired trucks save on fuel due to better aerodynamics, and the monitoring of the vehicles means safer driving.

“This technology makes for a safer, more efficient way of moving goods around,” said Hodgson. “This is not 20-30 years from now. It’s achievable in the short term. It can transform its industry.”

Cohda Steps Up for Connected Test, Smart City Challenge

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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.

Truck Platoons Go Cross Border in Europe

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Burney Simpson

Truck platooning will soon go live in Europe in a cross border event organized by the Netherlands as it works to promote smart mobility.

The EU Truck Platooning Challenge will include seven platoons of trucks operating live on major European highways. The routes haven’t been released.

The trucks will be provided by six European truck manufacturers — DAF (Paccar), Daimler, Iveco, MAN, Scania, and Volvo.

The trucks will start on March 31 from various European countries and are scheduled to arrive in the Port of Rotterdam on April 6. The finish coincides with the Intertraffic trade fair running April 5-8 in Amsterdam.

Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden are taking part in the Challenge.

Platooning has been tested on private courses in Europe but there’s been no live cross border operations of this scope previously. Mercedes drew media coverage last year for testing truck platooning in Arizona in the U.S.

Platooning is a form of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) connected technology. A convoy of platooning trucks are connected through Wi-Fi, GPS, radar and other systems. The trucks move in sync, with the lead truck having some control over the acceleration and braking of the following truck(s).

Platooning improves aerodynamics, and tests have shown it can reduce fuel costs by 5 to 10 percent.

This truck platooning video from Scania shows how the concept works.

Steve Phillips, secretary general of the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR), said the Challenge has several benefits. It encourages national road authorities to allow platooning trucks to operate, it publicizes the concept of platooning, and it encourages collaboration between business and governments, Phillips writes.

The Challenge is an initiative of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment of the EU President. The Dutch hold the office during the first six months of 2016. The Netherlands announced it would make smart mobility a central theme during its presidency.

Kia Scores License to Test Autonomous Cars on Nevada Public Roads

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Jennifer van der Kleut

The latest company to land a license to test autonomous cars on public roads is Kia, in the state of Nevada.

Several news outlets report that Kia and Hyundai are working together to test partially and fully autonomous cars in real-world driving situations, and together have invested $2 billion to develop the technology and hire new engineers by 2018, according to SlashGear.

Kia has declared it wants to start selling partially autonomous cars to the public by 2020, and fully autonomous cars by 2030.

Digital Trends reports that some of Kia’s planned features for its future cars include vehicle-to-vehicle communication that will allow cars to inform each other of their location in real-time, and Traffic Jam Assist, which will automate driving at low speeds in traffic jams on roads such as highways.

Kia will reportedly test electric Kia Soul cars on public roads in Nevada.

Each V2I Site Could Cost $51,650

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Burney Simpson

The cost to deploy a single Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) roadside site could average over $50,000 but the costs for installing a national network of sites remains unclear, according to a General Accountability Office (GAO) report.

In addition, the development of a national V2I and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) infrastructure faces a number of challenges, topped by the need for greater data communication capabilities to handle the system’s Wi-Fi needs.

The GAO released last month “Intelligent Transportation Systems: Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Technologies Expected to Offer Benefits but Deployment Challenges Exist.” (Visit here for a summary).

The average cost of a single V2I site could reach $51,650 which would cover planning, equipment, installation, connectivity, and signal upgrades, the GAO determined. That would not include routine maintenance, staff training, equipment replacement, and security costs. A device might need to be replaced every five to 10 years.

The largest cost by far would be for backhaul, which covers the establishing of communication connectivity between the roadside unit and back offices or traffic management centers, along with fiber optic cables, sensors and relays. The GAO broke down the average costs as:

Planning & design:  $6,650

Equipment:               $7,450

Installation:               $3,550

Backhaul:                  $30,800

Signal upgrades:       $3,200

The single site cost can’t be extrapolated to a local, state, or national cost because “current cost data for V2I technology are limited due to the small number of test deployments thus far,” the GAO reports.

For instance. test bed deployments have varied in size, and different applications – a busy four-way intersection vs. a single-lane curve speed warning – may require different equipment.

One of the goals of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s just begun Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Project is to determine cost estimates for 56 V2I applications in three locations — New York City, Tampa, and Wyoming.

The payoffs on this investment could be huge. Since 2011, Japan has installed

about 55,000 pieces of V2I equipment on local roads, and 1,600 pieces on expressways, the GAO reported. Japan claims it has cut accident rates and reduced congestion which brought lower greenhouse gas emissions.

In the U.S., an installed V2I and V2V system could prevent 59 percent of single-vehicle crashes and 29 percent of multi-vehicle crashes, which engender costs of more than $200 billion annually, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

DSRC CHALLENGE

The biggest challenge facing the rollout of V2I and V2V technology is the capability of the radiofrequency spectrum that is now devoted to transportation safety communications, according to a survey of the 21 subject matter experts that contributed to the GAO study.

In brief, the 5.9 Gigahertz (GHz) band was set aside for Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) systems, a wireless technology that allows vehicles and infrastructure to communicate over a range of about 1,000 feet, the GAO reports.

A V2V-equipped vehicle can use DSRC to share data about 10 times per-second on its speed, position, heading, acceleration, size, and braking with surrounding vehicles and road infrastructure.

The DOT has insisted the 5.9 band remain exclusive for V2I, V2V and other traffic-oriented communications. (For its part, Japan tested its 700 MHz band for sharing capability and decided to keep it devoted to V2I and V2V communications.)

However, growing demand for spectrum for Wi-Fi from consumers, businesses, and state and local governments has spurred the Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether it’s feasible to share the 5.9 band. The FCC oversees spectrum use by nonfederal users.

The GAO found that there are two important non-government efforts looking into technology that would allow for sharing of the 5.9 band:

  • Toyota, Denso, Qualcomm division CSR Technologies and other firms have been working since 2013 with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) DSRC Tiger Team;
  • Cisco Systems, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and the Association of Global Automakers are in the midst of testing “listen, detect, and avoid” protocol. In May, these three, along with GM and Toyota, met with the FCC and predicted that feasibility testing of the technology could be completed by the end of 2015.

GM has publicly committed that its 2017 Model Year Cadillac CTS vehicles will have DSRC technology. That would translate into DSRC-capable vehicles for sale to the public as soon as the third quarter of 2016.

The GAO wrote its report at the request of Rep. Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican, Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican, and Rep. Daniel Lipinski, an Illinois Democrat. Bucshon is on the House Energy & Commerce Committee; Comstock and Lipinski are on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.

Installing a V2I and V2V infrastructure will be a huge task. A number of DOT pilots now in the works won’t be done until 2020, and the agency estimates that even by 2025 only 20 percent of intersections will be V2I capable. For now, the goal is to have 80 percent of intersections V2I capable by 2040.

Autonomous Tech Scales Capitol Hill

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Burney Simpson

The autonomous transportation industry brought its game to Capitol Hill this week, holding a nearly all-day event that featured speeches from a U.S. Senator, four Congressmen, and a number of driverless leaders, all over the course of a luncheon, a seminar, and a showcase event/cocktail party with several dozen of the top firms in the business.

Not bad for a day’s work.

Trade group ITS America put on ‘The Future of Mobility: Rethinking Transportation for the Next 30 Years’ and garnered the participation of Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, and Representatives Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, Rodney Davis, an Illinois Republican, and Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon.

While much of the conversation was positive and friendly, a few of the seminar panelists took the opportunity to raise issues that Congress may have to address someday.

  • Data Privacy and Security — Daniel Morgan, chief data officer with the US Department of Transportation, noted that the security and privacy of citizen travel data was essential but that the information could be beneficial for metropolitan planners. Morgan floated the idea that a third party firm be responsible for collecting and storing the data if people objected to the federal government holding it.
  • Reserving DSRC wavelength for V2V and V2I — Alan Korn, an executive with heavy-truck parts supplier Meritor WABCO, said the Dedicated Short-Range Communications 5.9 GHz spectrum must be reserved for Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communications to ensure autonomous driving safety. Later, Sen. Peters said that new technology may allow for the sharing of the 5.9 spectrum with other Wi-Fi users.
  • Driverless Timeline — Supplying a welcome dose of reality was Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Dingus said developing a truly autonomous system would be considerably more difficult and probably take longer than some recent studies and press reports suggest. Driverless vehicles will have to be safer than the much-maligned human driver but consider that the average human has one rear-end crash every 25 years, and makes 3 million braking decision in that time, said Dingus. “It is very difficult to build a system that is that robust,” said Dingus.

The exhibition hall featured 22 organizations involved with autonomous transportation development, including Eberle Design, Econolite, GM, Iteris, the University of Michigan Mobility Transformation Center, NXP Semiconductors, Southwest Research Institute, and Uber.

VTTI was there too taking a bit of a victory lap after its successful demo this week on a nearby highway of its driverless Cadillac SRX. The ride along featured Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and generated extensive media coverage (See “Virginia Seeks Autonomous Research Lead,” October 20, 2015).

The showcase garnered a little more exposure for the technology with another half-dozen members of Congress visiting the exhibit hall to check out the firms on display, according to an ITS spokesperson.

The day also offered an exhibit of a DeLorean car from an old movie that predicted people would fly on skateboardy-type things. This fascinated a number of Gen-Yers and Millennials who took selfies.

Photo: United States Capitol, 2015, Matt C.

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