Automakers Working on Car-to-Car Ad-Hoc Networks

LouCifer writes "The Register is reporting that BMW, Audi, Daimler Chrysler, Volkswagen, Renault and Fiat are working with a German government grant to help develop a standard method for car-to-car wireless networking dubbed 'NOW' (Network On Wheels). NOW is based on 802.11 and IPv6 to allow inter-vehicle communication based on ad-hoc networking to share traffic information. With routing capabilities, the hope is the vehicles will be able to warn each other - and the drivers - about bad weather, accidents and road problems. A prototype is expected by mid-2005 with field trials to start late Q1 2006."

Re:Get out of the left lane slowpoke

[xstonedogx]

I prefer a nice old-fashioned glowing middle finger coming up out of the trunk.

dynamic routing

[saigon_from_europe]

I used to work for a company that tried to deploy selfrouting 802.11b network.

If you talk about proof of concept, it works. But for real usage, it sucks. Main problem is to detect what is usuful neighbor. We used to send some control messages (although there already are beacon frames in 802.11), and to collect its signal. But signal strength is not a measure of link quality. As long as there is direct optical visibility, signal level can be really low, but link will be perfect. If you don't have optical visibility, you will receieve some packets, probably most of them - but once you try to send some real traffic over that link, everything will go to hell.

Algorithm (we used to use AODV) per se works ok; there is a whole theory about these algorithms; but in a case of 802.11b, there is no mean (at least no mean known to me) to detect what neighbor is useful one.

As a result, we had to abandon this idea, and we moved to static routes; but it does not help in case of moving vehicles.

All in all, don't expect this to work too reliably except when you are close to access points (or "access points", since this will be ad-hoc mode of 802.11b).

This is not really new.

[Timex]

There has been an idea to use this sort of technology for a while- Circumnav Networks [circumnavnetworks.com] aims to allow cars to share information on traffic patterns and such, so that the driver can determine the quickest route to his (or her) destination.

Their website is a little sketchy, but from what I hear, it looks cool.

Cory Doctorow

[blues5150]

This sounds a lot like the Car-to-Car peer network used for music trading along the Mass Pike in Eastern Standard Tribe [craphound.com] Great book and definitely worth the download.