The vast range of developments taking place in the world of automobiles have recently put driver safety at the forefront. Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) have been steadily introducing autonomous braking, collision avoidance, pedestrian detection, speed gauging and proximity alerts to make driving safer on road. But, one thing that has still remained the same is the potential risk involved in biking. Autotalks, the Israel-based firm, wants to change all of that.
The company teaming up with ZF-owned Bosch to establish a WiFi-powered vehicle-to-vehicle communication system that will allow bikes to "talk" or communicate with nearby cars equipped with the same hardware. This will allow bikes to exchange information like speed, direction trajectories, location, necessary braking and other information to help bikers slow down or avoid the same path, in time. The hardware is being custom designed to have a small footprint, which then becomes easier to retrofit in two-wheelers. It will also use low power to drive itself, and provide audio-visual cues to the rider when another vehicle up ahead encounters an accident, or breaks into the path of the bike.
The only major obstacle here is that for this technology to materialise and work efficiently, almost every vehicle around must be equipped with the same hardware. This once again brings the focus back to the need for a uniform platform on which all vehicles will be able to communicate. Cloud services are being presently worked on, and as ZF, Bosch's parent company recently disclosed at its Vision Zero press conference, there may be a possibility for multiple companies with varying proprietary technologies to come together and present a common standard to enable connected vehicles.
Autotalks is presently exploring the viability of the technology, and will be holding its first trials on Ducati motorcycles. In future, the safety system may even work with WiFi-enabled smartphones for pedestrian safety, and not just be restricted to bikes and cars.