Stem in Current Events Information Technology

36

S T E M I N C U R R E N T E V E N T S

One idea that might be part of a driverless future is to have each vehicle broadcast a constant network of signals so that cars can actually communicate with each other.

directly in front of it—but what if there’s a danger coming from around a corner or behind an obstacle?Vehicle-to-vehicle com- munication, orV2V, seeks to answer those questions by providing self-drivers with a complete picture of their surroundings. A pilot project conducted by the National HighwayTraffic Safety Administrationand theUniversityofMichiganputV2Vtechnology into nearly 3,000 cars and tested them in Ann Arbor, Michigan. TheV2V technology allowed the cars to “talk” to one another by sending out information via radio wave. The cars shared data such as speed and GPS location up to 10 times per second to similarly equipped vehicles. After collecting and analyzing the data, the NHTSA estimated that more than 1,000 lives could be saved every year just in the United States. Plus, more than half