Bacon's Rebellion

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VPI Snags another Connected Cars Contract

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

tech_research

Virginia Tech is stepping up its involvement in developing technologies for connected cars. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute has won another $1 million federal grant to design the communication framework that will allow vehicles to “talk” to their drivers as well as other cars on the roadway. States a Virginia Tech news story:

The projects goal: Design, test, and disseminate the initial recommended framework that controls how motorists receive communications – traffic warnings, the too-close approach of another vehicle, weather warnings, or text messages — while driving. Focus will be placed on the communication’s format, visual or audible, and the order and timing of such messages.

This comes atop $30 million in other connected-vehicle projects, including long-term research into crash avoidance systems, automated driving, and naturalistic driver experiences behind the wheel. Research locations include the Virginia Smart Road near Blacksburg, the Virginia International Raceway in Danville and the connected-vehicle test bed in Fairfax County.

Driverless cars are coming faster than you think. Virginia is not a leader in this field but Virginia Tech’s research may allow the Virginia Department of Transportation to be a fast follower.

— JAB

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4 responses to “VPI Snags another Connected Cars Contract”

  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Well this ought to set the libertarians off (once again). The NERVE of the Federal Govt using OUR tax dollars doing something the free market should be doing ESPECIALLY since we are BROKE!

    OUTRAGE!

    Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are right. This is more of Obama’s socialism and government control of private enterprise!

    Time to water some more trees of LIBERTY!

  2. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    VW has spent a lot of money working on smart vehicles. I saw a presentation this summer. I would guess other manufacturers are doing the same.

    Bonus-what happens to the auto insurance industry in the long run?

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      re: insurance

      I predict that you’ll be forced to have a mandatory rider on your policy like we now have for uninsured motorists but it’ll be called driverless car insurance!

      😉

      surely you were not expecting the insurance industry to get hurt!

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    so I tried to get a rise out of Jim Bacon and no luck!

    so what is the appropriate approach for government when it comes to connected cars?

    it’s a serious question.

    we had comments here recently that were essentially criticisms of the government in delineating communications spectrum for different uses.

    I sort of see “connected cars” as something that could conceivably be done primarily by the private sector once standards were agreed to and it does not necessarily require the government to do that once the spectrum itself is allocated by the govt.

    For instance, the WiFi standard that many utilize in their homes is one developed and maintained by the industry and not without it’s own issues where companies can and do extend the standard in proprietary ways:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

    Libertarian types will often make the case that the GPS satellite network could have been developed by the private sector and not the Government – and for a whole lot less money…

    so are connected cars something that should be left to the private sector to develop including standards or not?

    honest question.

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