Making Cars Smarter and People Safer
Ram Kandarpa, a Booz Allen associate, talks about the exciting new technologies that will allow your car to communicate with other cars – and even stop itself to avoid a crash.
How soon will we be able to get in our cars, and simply have them take us where we want to go?
Kandarpa: We’re a long way off from such sophisticated vehicle and road technology. But we are now developing technologies for “cooperative driving,” in which your car – instead of being a discrete entity on the road – communicates and cooperates with other vehicles and with the roadside infrastructure.
How does this work?
Kandarpa: Both the cars and the infrastructure have sensors and beacons that collect and then communicate data. In many cases, we’re taking defense technologies and applying them to the highway domain to improve safety and efficiency.
What is an example of a safety feature?
Kandarpa: Intersection collision avoidance. Let’s say your car and another car are approaching an intersection. The other guy has the green light but it’s about to turn red, and he’s going so fast it looks like he’s going to run the light and possibly hit you. Your car – which knows all this because it’s getting data from the other car and from the traffic signal – can warn you to slow down, and if you don’t respond, it can brake on its own.
Are there other advantages to this technology?
Kandarpa: It can improve “mobility” – making your driving experience much better. For example, cars on your route can alert you to an icy patch ahead – their sensors will pick it up, and communicate it to your car. Instead of getting general road conditions, you’re getting real-time information almost block by block. There are also commercial applications – you can download movies for the kids in the backseat, get coupons for restaurants and other businesses you’re approaching – you can even get your emissions inspection done while you’re driving.
How has Booz Allen played a role?
Kandarpa: We conducted tests for a government client to determine whether these concepts are viable, using real people driving real cars on highways and roads in a large U.S. city. A consortium of auto manufacturers provided instrumented cars, while Booz Allen handled the infrastructure side. We installed the hardware and software for dozens of roadside beacons, and linked the vehicles and infrastructure to a communications center at our offices in Herndon, Va.
Q: What did the tests demonstrate?
Kandarpa: That the foundations for cooperative driving are already a reality. We showed, for example, that a car can pick up a traffic signal’s beacon indicating that the light will change in 10 seconds. We also demonstrated that vehicles passing by beacons can sort out the information that is relevant to them – such as the icy patch that’s in their intended route, rather than one that’s somewhere else.
Q: What kind of expertise does Booz Allen bring to this arena?
Kandarpa: We have a thorough knowledge of these emerging technologies and their applications, as well as an understanding of the full range of transportation issues and their relevance to government. We also draw on Booz Allen’s expertise in a variety of areas, such as wireless technology, global positioning systems and cyber security. We have a truly matrixed team.
story posted December 1, 2009
