Autonomous
driving technology largely or we’d say has been only limited to cars,
until now. BMW and Honda have already been featuring connectivity
technologies in their cars and now plan to shift the technology onto
their motorcycles.
Both these
automobile giants are working with the University of Michigan and
Australian startup venture Codha Wireless to implement autonomous
driving technologies into their motorcycles. The National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration, USA states that though only 5 percent of
driving fatalities involved a
motorcycle, the injury percentage stands at a high 80 percent of all
motorcycle accidents.
Known as
vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), the
technology was earlier confined to equip self-driving cars of the
future, but would be transferred to motorcycles. A total of 3000
connected vehicles are under trial by the University of Michigan
Transportation Institute (UMTRI) in the city of Ann Arbor with BMW and
Honda motorcycles now adding to the tally.
Like
cars, the technology on motorcycles would allow bikes to ‘talk; to
traffic lights, roadside signs and cars. A long-range secure form of
Wi-Fi would enable
the motorcycle to communicate with a car much before the drivers see
each other while approaching a blind intersection. A set of green and
red lights on the dash mounted instrument panel would report and warn
riders while approaching intersections and blind corners. The technology
would also benefit electric motorcycles notifying the riders of the
nearest power stations and choose the most energy efficient routes to
their destinations based on traffic conditions. (Brilliant!)
The
technology has struck favours with and attracted strategic investments
from giants like Cisco Systems and NXP Semiconductors. In fact Cisco is
already using Codha software at its roadside V2I gateways, while NXP and
Codha are into collaboration for having jointly developed radio chips
installed in cars running connectivity technologies.
In
a situation where motorcycle fatalities have been rising year
by year, if this technology could manage to even bring down the numbers
even my a marginal percentage- it would mean saving thousands of
invaluable lives if the numbers are considered on a global scale. Great
initiative that!
