It seems V2V just won’t die.

Daimler AG announced on Monday its participation in a field test of a communication system that would enable participating vehicles to communicate with one another as well as with networked traffic infrastructure.

The trial, to be conducted on public roads in and around Frankfurt, Germany, through the end of the year, includes 120 vehicles equipped with the system.

To optimize traffic flow, vehicles will communicate with one another and with traffic infrastructure consisting of roadside communication devices. Should a hazard be detected by one car, drivers in similarly equipped vehicles would be alerted as they approached. The technology also can communicate with networked roadside devices, alerting drivers whose vehicles are not equipped with the system to be vigilant.

Because of the infrastructure intensive nature of V2V plus other concerns such as hacking, I am just not a fan of of promoting V2V. If it works out we all win, but in my most humble opinion V2V sucks oxygen out of the discussion of autonomous vehicles and will impede, rather than advance, their progress.

Thanks Gabriel S for sending in the link.

The beauty of autonomous vehicles is just that – that they are autonomous. They don’t need any alien motherships or telecommunication towers to guide them in the right direction. They are happy enough by themselves, just like any other car on the road.

This is why I have consistently argued against V2V as the be-all end-all as it seems to me to be a distraction, not a solution to problems. Needless to say, I am almost alone in that viewpoint.

Susan Kuchinskas from Telematics Update today brings us a thorough update on the market of V2V, asking exactly the same question: in the future world, isn’t V2V redundant?

The NHTSA:

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it will decide whether to engage in rule making for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications in 2013, following its year-long model deployment, which kicks off in Ann Arbor, Michigan in August.

On Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC):

nstead of installing the cameras, radars and sensors needed to ‘see’ around the car, as well as the software and processors to make sense of that data, V2V would let automakers install the cheaper DSRC modems that provide a steady stream of standardized data, with maybe a couple of short-range radars to supplement.

The problem with relying on DSRC, of course, is penetration. Says Steven H. Bayless, seniordirector, telecommunications and telematics at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, “If it is true that V2V is a cheaper alternative to ADAS systems that depend on sensors like radar, that’s great. But you still have to wait until there’s significant penetration on the roads.”

…

Most agree with Vann Wilber, senior partner of Global Technical Policy Associates and policy program manager for the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Consortium, who says, “I think the two will coexist; there will be a convergence of some kind. I see them being complementary and maybe one becoming more sophisticated, and the other not having to be so sophisticated.”

He points out that, for example, a car’s forward collision-warning system can’t see two or three cars ahead of the car in front; V2V could expand that visibility. Or, a car might have a forward-facing camera but not one to see what’s coming from the side.

I’d argue with that – Google’s system is able to see several cars in front by bouncing LADAR off the road.

Continental’s Christian Schumacher:

 ”I see vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure as a key enabler for automated driving. The communication gives us more data points for automated driving, and the communications part might be one of the key enablers to approach the next level of automated technology.”

Thanks to reader Thom for the link.

A McAfee rep has been quoted widely in the press in the last few days raising fears of the hacking of Driverless Cars.

“For example, the first remote keyless entry systems did not implement any security and were easily compromised. As more and more digital technology is introduced into cars, the threat of malicious software and hardware manipulation increases,” he said.

Wireless devices like web-based vehicle-immobilisation systems that can remotely disable a car could potentially be used maliciously to disable cars belonging to unsuspecting owners, said Samani, citing a recent case in Texas where 100 vehicles were disabled from a remote disable system.

First, McAfee’s agenda in this could not be any clearer. The more scared we are, the more money they make.

Second, despite my cynicism towards McAfee, this is a legitimate concern. There’s significant privacy and freedom concerns that are being raised about the possibility of Driverless Cars being hijacked by the federal government or corporations for their own ends, and in my personal experience this concern has been most noted within communities of computer programmers. That is to say, hackers. Because of this there is a more than reasonable chance that hacking will occur – be it through idiocy (Lulzsec), vigilantism (Anonymous) or just plain criminality.

This is why I’m not a fan of V2V (Vehicle to Vehicle) communication technologies or telemetry in a general sense. There may be some actual risk, but the far greater harm will come from perceived public risk. It’s just not worth it – make cars fully autonomous, I say, and we will enjoy a much smoother ride towards Driverless Car acceptance.

Here’s a thought exercise for today.

A big problem for driverless car engineers is not common easy-to-imagine circumstance such as people suddenly braking on highways, but the random situations we occasionally find ourselves which are intensely human or simply difficult to predict.

It’s the unusual situations where manual override is needed which are going to keep the elderly, the blind, children and the drunk away from Driverless Cars in the short term.

Some situations that are atypical may include:

1. Drive-Through Take-Out – many companies have different set-ups and to program all of them into a car would take a certain level of genius.
2. Buying a parking ticket for an impromptu parking lot (such as for a festival or sporting event) and then parking.
3. Road-works or a traffic accident creating a detour.
4. Police flagging down a car.

Here’s two ideas for over-arching solutions to solve some or all of these problems above:

1. Colored Lighting – Light configurations could be set up that Driverless Cars will recognize and use. These could be installed into McDonald’s at low cost or added into a policeman’s baton. While there’s potential for people to create their own lighting configurations and steer the cars all over the road (for a funny Youtube video, for example) this issue could potentially be overcome by using highly specific light frequencies which are banned from common sale. Alternatively, simple hand signals could be developed to be used in these ad-hoc situations.

2. Telemetry – Taco Bell could easily use a system like a next-generation Bluetooth or Wifi to communicate with cars that have come into their commercial spaces and then direct them through. This could also be employed in all predictable ad-hoc situations like road-works or sporting events but not so much in the case of unexpected events!

The big issue I foresee with either of the ideas above is that of consent. Would an external system need to ask for the driver’s consent in order to then direct its flow? You would say the answer to this question would have to be “yes.” Yet how reliable is a drunk person going to be in giving consent? How about a blind person – how would they know what is going on? Or even someone who has a mental disability?

Due to the issues above it could be a while before the full transition takes place.

CNN brings us this report:

“We typically don’t drive our smartphones at 80 miles an hour,” said Brian Contos, security strategist at technology protection firm McAfee. “But safety concerns and privacy concerns all culminate when you talk about automobiles.”

“The nightmare scenario is 100 cars on a bridge and 50% of them hit their brakes and 50% hit their accelerators,” added Contos. “Just the amount of collision that something like that would cause with a remote attack, that’s pretty scary stuff.”

Another possibility envisaged by Contos is hackers using radio waves to trigger a tire pressure warning. “And then what happens? The logical person would pull over and check their tires, and what a great way to carjack somebody.

This is an interesting concept and while hacking attacks are obviously going to be quite rare, public fear of them is another thing altogether and the reason why we are largely opposed to the grand visions of interconnected cars. We believe that driverless cars can function well without having to be wirelessly hooked up to every other car.

Looks like the NHTSA is starting to wake up to the possibilities of autonomous cars. We aren’t happy with the direction they are taking, however:

“We have been working on this notion for over a decade,” Strickland said of emerging technology that allows vehicles to send signals to one another to avoid collisions.

“It’s time to go fishing. We’re done cutting bait,” Strickland said at the Automotive Megatrends USA 2012 conference. “We will make an agency decision in 2013.”

The safety administrator said connected vehicle technology is NHTSA’s next major step in the continued pursuit to reduce traffic fatalities. In 2010 there were 33,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S., a 25% reduction since 2006.

When most people think driverless cars their thoughts seem to assume that the system must be centrally controlled with cars all on a car-internet talking to each other.

Yet cars drive all over the road right now without wireless communication. The goal of driverless cars needs to be to replicate this – that each car is autonomous unto itself and relies on radar, LIDAR, cameras, GPS and other magical technology. Opening cars up to each other opens us up to hacking. The more cars are connected to networks, the more vulnerable they are.