Skip to main content

Ford demonstrates talking vehicles using LTE

Ford has demonstrated its latest advancements in vehicle-to-vehicle communications at the final CoCarX (Co-operative Cars Extended) research project presentation, further highlighting the viability of improving road safety and traffic management through the use of intelligent vehicles.
April 25, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSS278 Ford has demonstrated its latest advancements in vehicle-to-vehicle communications at the final CoCarX (Co-operative Cars Extended) research project presentation, further highlighting the viability of improving road safety and traffic management through the use of intelligent vehicles.

Ford is the first to showcase vehicle-to-vehicle communication using the new mobile communications network LTE (Long Term Evolution), which enables much faster data transmission than existing proposed systems.

The company's sophisticated vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology will play a key role in the CoCarX presentation in Düsseldorf, Germany, the culmination of a project that began in 2009 with the aim of developing the systems and infrastructure that would allow vehicles to update each other with hazard, driving condition and traffic information.

Leveraging localised radio frequencies and the latest mobile phone network technology, Ford's vehicle-to-vehicle communication system allows individual cars to broadcast messages to other vehicles - keeping them informed and allowing them to prepare for road conditions they are yet to encounter.

Two Ford S-Max vehicles demonstrated the company’s developmental vehicle-to-vehicle warning system, designed to prevent drivers being taken by surprise by rapidly developing situations and changing conditions. For example, hard braking of the lead S-Max triggers an emergency signal that is displayed inside the following S-Max within less than 100 milliseconds.

"Intelligent vehicles, able to send and receive messages in fractions of a second, could help warn drivers of dangers neither they nor their hazard monitoring safety systems could spot, be it because of the distance to the hazard or obstacles that block the view ahead, such as heavy traffic or bends in the road," says Christian Ress, connectivity technical expert, global driver assistance and active safety.

Ford believes the ability to utilise broadband communication channels such as LTE will allow large numbers of vehicles to stay in immediate contact with each other in the future, potentially reducing the frequency of accidents, aiding traffic flow and easing road congestion - in turn reducing CO2 emissions.

Related Content

  • June 26, 2012
    euroFOT study demonstrates benefits of driver assistance systems
    Today, the euroFOT consortium published the findings of a four-year study focused on the impact of driver assistance systems in the Europe. The €22 million (US$27.5 million) European Field Operational Test (euroFOT) project which began in June 2008 and involved 28 companies and organisations, was led by Aria Etemad from Ford’s European Research Centre in Aachen, Germany. The study looked at existing technologies and their potential to both enhance safety and reduce environmental impact. euroFOT also reveale
  • May 19, 2021
    SNCF uses ITS to make crossings safer
    There are too many deaths where road and rail intersect: Virginie Taillandier, smart level crossing project manager at French rail group SNCF, outlines how ITS communications can help
  • December 3, 2014
    Arup report reveals the future of highways
    Future highways will be made from self-healing, glow-in-the-dark materials and will be governed by sophisticated technologies that communicate with cars, road infrastructure and GPS systems, according to the Future of Highways report from global engineering and design consultancy, Arup.
  • January 26, 2012
    New technology revolution in urban traffic control?
    Urban traffic control is a well-defined and practised art. Nevertheless, there are technologies here and on the horizon with the potential to revolutionise how we do things. By Gavin Jackman and Andrew Kirkham, TRL, and Jason Barnes. Distributed monitoring and control of urban traffic networks and flows is nothing new. PC-based Urban Traffic Control (UTC) is now well established and operating in many locations around the world. However, it is worth considering the effects of the huge growth in the use of sm