Other solutions , such as the one provided by IIT Hyderabad, continue to lack in vitally important capabilities compared to the Spider V2X solution.

The lack of technological focus from other providers has caused them to create solutions that are inadequate as they fail to meet a number of important needs for functioning V2V/V2I. Current technologies focused on 5.9GHZ DRSC have unwisely exhausted time and resources on also providing connectivity to cellular providers and considering infotainment features of a vehicle that would have been better utilized focusing on the important aspects of V2V/V2I. C-V2X suffers from a lack of available bandwidth given that every other provider in the space has inefficient messaging protocols with data packets that are far too large, exacerbating the issue of bandwidth.

The Spider V2X solution solves all of these problems. Its solution is further far more complete and robust, allowing for communication between vehicles, infrastructure, the roadway itself, and even road construction.

The data packet for communication is compact, allowing for a greater level of communication between each entity and a messaging protocol that makes for communication between all relevant objects (including temporary infrastructure such as road construction) extremely rapid. Additionally the Spider V2X solution, by being narrowly focused on V2X and V2I, provides far more capability than all other solutions. In fact, the Spider V2X solution is ready for acquisition.

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In a mesh networking scenario, the minute a node comes online it is available to all other nodes. Vehicles in this scenario are sending out information about itself to all other vehicles on the network.

Now imagine for a second the road is an extremely busy freeway in Los Angeles. It is easily conceivable that every single vehicle on the road for multiple hundreds of square miles would be connected up to a single massive mesh network. That means every vehicle on that network is now communicating with every other vehicle even those potentially multiple hundreds of miles away on roads that have nothing to do with each other.

Now to be fair, players in the space are working on ways to limit how far out a message is sent, but sending out a generalized broadcast is “rather difficult” (to put it mildly) to control how far you send it. It’s either limited or it isn’t. If it is limited, how do you limit how far information is sent (in terms of radius) on a “general broadcast.”

This is why we keep saying that basically everyone in this space is coming at the problem in almost entirely the wrong way. Spider V2X is being built on a completely different protocol stack that allows for easily controlling how far out a signal about a given vehicle is sent or received. From there it’s a simple matter of the communication protocol to allow for the transmission of vehicle data to other vehicles, and then receiving the same information from other vehicles and passing it off to the vehicle’s AI.

This is why we are so far ahead of every other player in this space.

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The biggest problem however is that straight GPS is accurate to a five foot radius. For V2X to function that is way too large of a margin of error. A five foot radius of accuracy means that your car could be in any one of three lanes on a highway as an example.

That means that V2X must augment straight GPS significantly (and efforts such as GNSS are underway to assist in the effort). You see, for V2X to work, any object must have it’s location known to within at most one inch margin of error and really even that might be too large.

To start with, GPS accuracy can be improved through onboard sensors that know the exact locations of fixed items such as a house, lightpoles, traffic lights, etc. A vehicle can then use simple triangulation as it moves by a fixed object combined with GPS to help make its location significantly more precise, and continue to do so as it travels (basically, continually calibrating it’s location while it drives)

Further, and just as importantly, a robust V2X system should not automatically trust the broadcast location or speed data of any vehicle within range of its own onboard sensors.

We have seen proposals put forward by others to allow some arbitrary number of cars operating with 100% agreement to “fix” a car that is broadcasting “incorrect” data. On this point we disagree. Allowing other cars to effectively control location and speed data would make it far to easy for multiple people working in concert to cause incredible mayhem by “fixing” so-called “incorrect” data (that is in reality accurate) and in that way dangerously affecting another vehicle.

While we absolutely do believe that a robust V2X system should have “permission and cooperation first” as a default with regard to the movement of other vehicles around it, we believe that one vehicle should not exactly “trust” anything said by another vehicle that it can verify with its own sensors. Further, most roadways, with preciously few exceptions have more than enough well known fixed items by which to adjust and keep calibrated its own location and speed that it is not needed for adjustment and calibration to be “given” by other vehicles.

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A vehicle needs to be able to communicate:

• It’s precise location (including lane designation)
• Speed of travel
• Direction of travel
• What it intends to do soon (e.g. lane change to the left turn lane in 500 feet, slow to 15mph over 50 feet, left turn in 550 feet … with those numbers updating as the vehicle approaches lane change)

In other words, and in simple to express terms, a vehicle must say, “Here’s where I am and here’s where I’m going.”

Now understand things like drive policy and cooperation with other vehicles means that there needs to be communication. What I have above is a simplistic example that assumes rules and other cars would not need to alter their own behavior in response.

In fact, when it comes to the V2X space, it is this issue of “permission” that in many ways is a central and defining issue. We at Spider V2X have the communication pretty much nailed in a way that we do not see any other player in the space (because they’re overcomplicating what is really a simple issue).

Just because one car wants to make a lane change doesn’t mean that it can. Imagine a scenario of a car in the second lane of a freeway in heavy traffic. It needs to move to the right lane in preparation of taking an exit.

Today, with human drivers, often there’s enough space somewhere to “fit in” with more than enough distance to take the exit. In a world of autonomous vehicles follow distances are likely to dramatically shrink. This means that when one vehicle in heavy traffic needs to make a lane change other vehicles will have to “grant permission” by slowing to give enough space for that vehicle to fit. This will require a “request/response” protocol and drive policy/rules that are not created by a vehicle manufacturer (which could then easily be more permissive to other vehicles from the same manufacturer and less so to vehicles from other manufacturers).

Request/response must be based on a “vehicle manufacturer blind” approach geared to being cooperative to any car on the road.

Drive policy and the request/response protocol must be designed to be inherently cooperative first. The rule of thumb here should be to grant permission to another vehicle unless there is some reason involving safety why not. When one car “wants” to make a lane change, and broadcasts that want, the other cars that will be in that location should act in a cooperative manner by responding with their intent to slow/create space, and grant that permission by default. This needs to be done without driver intervention, or driver permission either.

While other players in this space are dramatically overcomplicating the mesh network, we have two major areas of concern about the companies that are involved:

1. Current efforts are being done backed by specific manufacturers and each manufacturer is coming up with their own solutions and driver policies. This is all but 100% certain to result in competing and non-compatible protocols and drive policies between manufacturers.
2. Little thought being given to preventing the various AI systems from communicating more information than is needed.

Any V2X system must be completely and entirely automobile manufacturer agnostic. This includes the drive policy that governs the how/when/why of granting permission to other vehicles (through both communication of granting that permission and through altering drive behavior to grant space).

Again, with all current efforts being guided by the various manufacturers, this is unlikely to be the case unless legislative bodies start indicating that there must be a more cooperative atmosphere and industry groups start working together across manufacturers to help ensure that this become the case (really ahead of various legislatures requiring it).

The post State of the V2X Sector appeared first on Spider V2X.

Most people involved in this discussion fail to realize that a mesh network of vehicles doesn’t require any cellular availability at all. We at Spider V2X are working on mesh networking utilizing multiple time tested and proven technologies already in existence to provide extremely rapid and highly reliable communications to and from a vehicle.

While there are certainly a few (and really just a few left) technological hurdles still to overcome, the unique approach we are using is putting us years ahead of everyone else in this space. Further, as a company we are working to create legislative efforts that do not force you into some requirement for your vehicle to maintain cellular service for the cars onboard V2X system to operate. An autonomous vehicle needs to be exactly that … autonomous.

In many parts of the world there are far too few cellular providers. Thus any V2X system that requires connectivity to an existing cellular network is inherently problematic and anti-competitive. It puts way too much control and authority over an individual’s vehicle into the hands of the cellular network provider. We believe if someone buys a car, they should own it and have control over it.

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