While we saw cars talking to each other in the motion picture Cars, we all know that the day's not far when they actually do. Obviously, their lights won't sport eyelashes and they won't gape as in Cars, but they will interact with each other, someday.
Volvo has made an announcement that it has started a pilot project using a cloud-based communication system, an arrangement where cars can interact with each other. Voila!
The project is a joint initiative of Volvo Cars, Swedish Transport Administration and Norwegian Public Roads Administration. The pilot project has 50 test cars on the road already and its working is simple too: if one of these cars passes through a slippery patch of tarmac, it sends that information to a cloud server, using the mobile phone network. The signal, picked up by Volvo, is sent as a warning to other cars in the area about slippery road conditions.
The information also helps improve road maintenance as the same data is sent to the relevant road authorities too.
Anything else?
Further developments in the field will include exchange of more information between cars, hence making the roads safer and less chaotic. Also, the number of test cars is bound to increase in time too.
Volvo has the aim that, by the year 2020, its cars will be so safe that no passenger should die or suffer serious injuries in one of its cars. And the utilisation of cloud-based communication is another step in the right direction.