Cohda Wireless said it would supply its equipment for a trial that lays the groundwork for the expected mandating of connected vehicle technology in the US within four years.
South Carolina-based Clemson University has chosen Cohda to supply its MK5 onboard and roadside unit hardware and software for the project supported by US Ignite, a White House initiative run by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Clemson will use Cohda units for the South Carolina Connected Vehicle Testbed (SC-CVT), located along a 10-mile segment of Interstate I-85 near Clemson's International Center for Automotive Research (ICAR) campus in Greenville.
Cohda Wireless claims to be a world leader in connected vehicle technology, also known as V2X (vehicle to everything), which enables connected cars to interact vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) or vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). Its hardware and software products are used in around 60% of all V2X field trials worldwide today.
Clemson University School of Computing Associate Professor Jim Martin said Cohda was chosen primarily for two reasons. "Firstly, Cohda's MK5 onboard and roadside units performed well in validation tests and, secondly, the support provided by Cohda to help us get our equipment up and running was outstanding," he said.
Cohda Wireless CEO Paul Gray said this US Ignite project recognised Cohda's role in the global industry. "This acknowledges Cohda as a leading provider of innovative connected vehicle technology," he said.
When establishing the SC-CVT project, the NSF stated that by the end of the decade, the US Department of Transportation would likely require all new vehicles to be connected vehicles, capable of communicating with other vehicles and roadside infrastructure through wireless communications in order to reduce the number of crashes and save lives.
V2V and V2I crash avoidance applications exchange safety-critical information such as speed, location and direction of movement to assess the crash risk of nearby vehicles.
