Honda's Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication System

For fighter pilots, Situational Awareness (or SA, in jet-jock lingo) is the key to survival in combat. With roads around the world resembling battlefields these days, such awareness of ones surroundings is vital while driving a vehicle, and in particular while riding a motorcycle. Without the benefit of being cocooned inside a few tones of metal bodywork, statistics have proven that a larger percentage of motorcycle accidents tend to be fatal or seriously injuring to the rider. Statistics have also proven that a large number of these accidents happen because of the rider not being aware of upcoming potentially hazardous road conditions or car drivers simply not seeing a motorcycle in time.

In order to avoid such situations, Honda, while working within the Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV) program in Japan, has come up with a concept called the Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Communication system. This revolutionary system works by linking vehicles together within a certain proximity by means of a Wireless-LAN network, continuously updating every vehicle of each other’s position, speed, direction of travel, accidents, congestion, or any other safety hazards. The system then collates this data and sends it to drivers or riders, to improve their awareness of conditions that are relevant to them.

Honda has also developed an ingenious way of relaying this information to the rider. Called the Human Machine Interface, or HMI, it is composed of a visual warning indicator located in the upper edge of the dashboard, and subtly in the rider’s line-of-sight. The visual indicator changes colour and intensity depending on the nature of any upcoming road hazard and intuitively lets the rider know the nature of the threat. This is coupled with an audible warning that is transmitted inside the rider’s helmet through a speaker hooked up using a Bluetooth link.

This system has already been successfully demonstrated by Honda at the Car 2 Car Communication Consortium event the Opel test track in Dudenhofen, Germany. Lets hope this technology makes its way to production soon enough and succeeds at reducing motorcycle-related accidents.