Auto makers to create car-to-car WLAN by 2006

[sintekk]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/21/car_to_car_wifi/

Car makers BMW, Audi, Daimler Chrysler, Volkswagen, Renault and Fiat have won a German government grant to help develop the basis for a standard method for car-to-car wireless data.

The money will be used by Network on Wheels (NOW), a project run out of the University of Mannheim with the participation of Karlsruhe Technical University. NOW is funded in part by the German 'Ministry for R&D'; the Car2Car Communication Consortium, a non-profit organisation founded by said vehicle manufacturers; Siemens; NEC; and the Fraunhofer Institute, itself better known as the home of the MP3 format.

NOW is focusing on 802.11 technology and IPv6 to develop "inter-vehicle communication based on ad hoc networking principles". Essentially, it's exploring ways that moving vehicles can automatically set up temporary links with other cars, bikes and trucks in the vicinity, and share traffic information.

With routing capabilities, the whole thing could become a huge 'automobile Internet', with vehicles warning each other - and their drivers - about slow-downs, bad weather, accidents and other road problems.

NOW's work will feed into the Consortium's effort to create Continuous Communications Air Interface for Long and Medium Range (CALM) - this vehicle-to-vehicle network. The Consortium is keen that a standard be defined for CALM-style networks, allowing manufacturers to differentiate without the risk of building (potentially dangerous) incompatibilities into the system. It sees CALM as a kind of automotive answer to the way GSM and GPRS came to be defined as Europe's mobile telephony standards.

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[MrSelf]

I can certainly see how this would help the packed interstate traffic around here.

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