Volvo Uses Cloud to Enhance Vehicle Safety
Volvo is known for their luxury automobiles. More often than not, many consumers pick Volvo because of the company’s commitment to building a safe vehicle. The Swedish automaker consistently out performs its competition in head to head safety tests. It would only make sense for a leader in automobile safety to pilot the first cloud based safety communications systems for automobiles. How does this system work?
Sensors are placed on the car that will collect data that will be sent back to datacenters. The data will be analyzed and beamed out to other cars in the same vicinity based on GPS coordinates. The data that will be available to users of this apparatus will be things such as sudden road blockages or ice patches. The system could also be used to measure traffic density which could warn you of a traffic jam ahead of time. This could allow you to create a detour plan on the fly so you aren’t waiting around for the jam to clear.
The project is dubbed the Intelligent Transport System or ITS by Volvo. Erik Israelsson is the project leader of the ITS and he was quoted as saying, “The pilot is one of the first practical examples of the way communication between vehicles over the mobile network enables vehicles to ‘speak’ to each other and with the traffic environment. This can contribute to making traffic safer.”
Reports say that there are only 50 Volvos currently using the ITS however the auto giant intends to ramp up this fleet by Winter 2014. The information gathered by the ITS can also by utilized by government agencies and even local news agencies to provide up to the second analysis. This data can then be used to save lives and make commutes safer, especially in areas that are constantly bombarded with severe weather.
