Christian Kotscher Subscribe to Newsletter Tell a Friend Print this Page 09/22/2008 Deer Radios? Each year over 44,000 people are killed in traffic accidents in the United States.  The global figure is estimated at over a million.  It is odd that any other killer would garner outrage, bracelets, telethons, government grants, and massive media attention to fix the problem.  Most of those other killers such as cancer and heart disease are beyond our current technology to prevent and cure, but not vehicular fatalities.  We have the technology and some of it has been around for years, why are we not deploying it? The Technologies Wireless and video are key to saving the majority of those millions that will die in the next decade and some of them are already being deployed in vehicles today.  One most people are familiar with are the rear-view camera that tells you if something is behind your back bumper.  This technology has cost millions of dollars to include in higher-end cars and trucks and has surely already spare many lives.  This is a great start, but what about what is in front of my bumper.  Especially when traveling at 70 MPH? Again, I will hoist video as the solution to crash avoidance.  The US DOT and other agencies have spent millions of dollars to develop standards for the radio in your car (the one that someone will eventually building into one of your future cars) to talk to other cars (also someday in the future) to tell each other when you are about to collide so you can avoid.  Perfect!  For those of you in Minnesota, look for the new federal program for installing radios on all the deer in the state so you will not have to worry about an out of season kill with your bumper! You can’t put a radio on a pedestrian, or a dog, or a bike, or a telephone pole, or frankly in over 200 million cars that are currently on US roads.  You can however SEE all of these potential obstacles with a video camera and much more. Lane departure systems are already in place in many large fleets in Europe and are growing in the US as well.  These work in various ways, but the most common are a mixture of cameras in the bumpers looking down for road lines, and a single camera in the dash or rear-view mirror looking forward.  Some aftermarket units are available in the US and this will hopefully be a trend that will grow quickly. If the car in front of yours had a radio, and if you had a radio that could receive the alert “hard braking!” then that might help stop a lot of freeway accidents.  The exception of the conspiracy nut who took his radio out so “they” could not track him, could ruin your day.  Especially when he is in front of you and he just hit a deer.  The idea of video and radar to actively look for objects would be the best way to avoid accidents, and many products are moving in that direction. Video Intelligence from a fixed infrastructure is another area where a dangerous situation can be detected by video and a counter measure can be automatically executed to avoid disaster.  When Digital Video is deployed along an interstate or in an intersection, a great bit of information can be extracted by Digital Video Intelligences.  The most basic of these could be high speed chase or reckless drivers, jay walkers, and wrong-way drivers. Wireless The key to in-vehicle video and fixed video is wireless.  To send and receive alerts to make this a reality, wireless will be needed in the vehicle.  Some think this will be government mandated and a government run network.  This idea is doomed to fail, especially when wireless is expected to be the sensor.  Video and radar will be the best sensors and wireless will be the link to make this sensor net a reality. The private sector has already invested billions of dollars on nationwide wireless data networks and they do a pretty good job of doing so.  hopefully industry and government will work together to allow consumers choices on their access methods and routes where other services will also spur the deployment of in vehicle wireless access. Vision Wireless Mesh and WiMax will make this vision a reality in the coming years.   The wide-spread deployment of infrastructure that will sense traffic and help avoid congestion and collisions.  WiMax and other wireless technologies will communicate with assets and vehicles throughout the network to send immediate and critical information to make a safer mode of transportation for everyone. back Related Items: • Beaverton, OR • W2i Finalizes Program Agenda for Digital Cities Convention in Washington, DC • Bowling Green (KY) Launches Public Safety Wi-Fi • Interoperability Grants — An Opportunity for Tomorrow, If You Know Where to Look Today! • Government Processes Reengineering Roundtable: Summary • WEBINAR: Wireless Video Surveillance at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions Comments No records were found. Post new comment: Only registered users can add comments. Please Log-in

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