The automotive supplier ZF will present a new traffic safety system called X2017Safe at CES in Las Vegas in early January 2, that one Networking and thus allows communication between a wide variety of road users. For the system to work effectively, however, as many road users as possible, including pedestrians and cyclists, must be networked. Given the proliferation of smartphones, this is by no means an unrealistic scenario.
The cloud-based X2Safe application uses an algorithm developed by ZF, which should make it possible to evaluate data from many road users, identify potential hazards and warn in the event of an impending collision. While pedestrians or cyclists are warned of the danger acoustically or by vibration using their smartphone, motorists receive appropriate information via onboard systems. In the case of cars, intervention by the technology would also be conceivable, for example through an automatically initiated evasive maneuver or full braking.
The advantage of such a safety technology: Road users would be warned clearly about an impending dangerous situation. For example, if a car and a cyclist are on a collision course on the way to an intersection that is difficult to see, Safe2X can warn of the dangerous situation even though the two road users cannot see each other. According to ZF, a significant part of accidents involving cars with weaker road users would be avoidable. The more traffic participants are connected to each other in the cloud, the more effectively the system works. (Mario Hommen / SP-X)