Australia’s first vehicle-to-pedestrian technology trial
Giving vehicles 360-degree situational awareness and sharing real-time driving information is the only way we can create safer roads for the future.
Last year South Australia held the first test of an autonomous vehicle on a public road, and this week it hosted the state’s first test of Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) technology over a mobile network.
The test was run by Telstra and Cohda Wireless, and incorporated three tests:
- a car and a cyclist approaching a blind corner
- a car reversing out of a driveway
- a car approaching a pedestrian crossing
Drivers and cyclists taking part in the trial had alerts sent to an app on their mobile phone.
This testing is part of Telstra’s Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) project – incorporating Vehicle-to-Pedestrian, plus Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) technology.
Telstra’s Chief Technology Officer Håkan Eriksson said, “This is the first time V2P technology has been trialled in Australia on a 4G network, and is an important step on the journey to fully-autonomous vehicles on Australian roads. This follows our successful trials of V2I in October 2016 and V2V in February 2017, also completed in partnership with Cohda.
“As operators of Australia’s largest and fastest mobile network, we believe Telstra’s 4G and future 5G networks can play a vital role in supporting the faster rollout of intelligent transport systems and V2X applications, making implementation of the technology cheaper and more efficient.”
Cheaper and efficient, plus as Cohda Wireless CEO Paul Gray adds, there are real human benefits to developing these technologies.
“Giving vehicles 360-degree situational awareness and sharing real-time driving information is the only way we can create safer roads for the future.”
And let’s not forget the possible benefits to the Australian economy.
South Australian Transport and Infrastructure Minister Stephen Mullighan, said “With this industry expected to be worth $90 billion worldwide by 2030, it’s vital that we encourage and support businesses locally to get involved on the ground floor.”
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