The promise of Vehicle-to-Vehicle communications has been around the corner and illustrated in presentations for decades, so it was a treat to see the technology in product form at CES2018, In the above video, Dr. Amine Taleb, Director of R&D for Comfort and Driving Assistance for Valeo North America, demonstrates Valeo’s XtraVue, which streams video from one car to another.

As shown in the above interview, the video shown on the dashboard monitor originates from the car that blocks the view of the driver, allowing the driver to see what the car in front of her sees. This feature is clearly illustrated at 1:32 in the above video when a pedestrian is seen.
This would be an informative feature when the car is stopped, but would be a distraction if used while the car was moving. But, in the context of true vehicle-to-vehicle communications, where the cars are autonomously making decisions and this was one more element of a sensor-fusion system, then this could enhance the data being collected by the numerous on-board sensors.
The other significant part of this demonstration is that it is peer-to-peer and doesn’t require vehicle-to-infrastructure communications to work. Taleb envisions 5G protocols to create a peer-to-peer, low-latency, high-speed communications network. He assures that security would be an inherent part of such an approach.
Perhaps this demonstration points to a different way of implementing 5G; one where vehicles become part of the network, reducing the need for 5G cell sites. As in-vehicle, mini-datacenter-type compute power becomes the norm, it’s not difficult to imagine that vehicles could perform all the necessary functions of a mini-cell site. This sort of P2P approach is already starting to take-off in the airline world, with the Airborne Wireless Network. With that in mind, the Valeo demonstration is important to technologists and policy-makers looking at 5G and its implementation.
[Editor’s Note: Read more about DSRC, V2V and 5G here.]
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