Self-Driving Cars Will Rely on Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication Technology First

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The future of autonomous, self-driving vehicles may lie in the technology of vehicle-to-vehicle communications, according to one expert.

National Highway Traffic Safety Association administrator Mark Rosekind spoke at MIT on the realities of self-reliant vehicles, and said the ability for vehicles to communicate with one another in an instantaneous fashion is crucial to ensuring the safety of passengers.

’Connected vehicles give you further lines of safety that you couldn’t get from an independent, autonomous vehicle,’ Rosekind said.

For example, before all vehicles become self-reliant, a self-reliant smarter car could communicate to other vehicles about what may lie around a corner or three football field lengths ahead in traffic. That sort of communication can extend to an entire smart city Internet-of-Things (IoT) ecosystem.

’It’s not just talking to cars, it’s talking to the infrastructure, it’s talking to pedestrians. There’s just a lot of opportunity there,’ he said.

However, that sort of innovation can only happen if cars from different brands can communicate with one another, so the technology may need to come from government policy.

Rosekind said that whatever direction automated driving takes, it’s essential to keep the human component in mind.

’With all the cool technology that’s out there, the human needs to be front-center, involved in the conversation,’ he said.