Irish Car+Travel Oct. 2013 | Page 26

Autumn 2013 Short distance internet key to connectivity The development of dedicated short both because of the larger number range communications systems of vehicles in a cellular area and the (DSRCS) is the key to a future where delay through the phone operators. cars help each other to deal with Getting the WLAN system isn't really traffic problems in real time. a matter of cost — the units might These systems will effectively be caronly add €100 euro to the cost of the borne WiFi transmitters by which all car at current prices. the vehicles in an immediate area can "And that could come down," communicate. says Dr van der Jagt. "We know that systems get cheaper once the With a range of around 300 metres, such wireless local area automotive industry gets involved." networks (WLANs) will handle the communication 'around the bend' of stopped traffic, obstacles, and crashes. "It will require a special communications device to be mandated for every new car," says Dr Pim van der Jagt, who says it will need an 80-90 percent penetration to be workable. An intermediate step might be to utilise the mobile phone devices already carried by 90 percent of Tony Conlan IMWA; Derek Sherwin, Mary Crotty drivers. But this wouldn't be as useful, PR; and Paul Maher from Citroen Ireland. Health spend prompts Ford diagnostic research Technology related to health may well trigger the 'next big thing' in cars. That's what has prompted Ford to develop a driver's seat that measures its occupant's heart rate, and which can send a full ECG to the driver's physician. A blood sugar monitor for diabetics is in development to perform a similar service to, for instance, the parents of a diabetic child in the back of their car. "More older people will be driving cars in the future," says Dr Pim van der Jagt. "There's a lot of consumer interest in ageing drivers, so it is important that we are researching what systems we can bring to the vehicle to support them." He noted that there are regular occurrences of people having heart attacks while driving, resulting in them impacting with other cars or buildings. "One recent case in Germany involved a car driven directly into a gas station, which had significant implications." He suggested a future where remote control could be taken of a car where the driver had become unable to continue driving because of a health issue. It's not just emergency matters, though, which are relevant to the technology. It's about productive use of time. "Some people spend three hours a day in their car. Spending on medical monitoring devices is exploding. If somebody can do the tests in their car which they would normally have to do at home, it's just an example of many things that you can do in your car while commuting." Trish Whelan IMWA, Publisher Irish Car+Travel magazine; Claire Mulcahy, and Deirdre Schwer, both from BMW Ireland. 26 Automation 'slows reaction' Laura Hardy, Continental Tyres; and Dr Natasha Merat. Drivers who need to react to emergencies do so more slowly from an automated driving scenario than from fully manual driving, according to tests carried out by the Institute of Transport Studies at Leeds University. Dr Natasha Merat said tests in the facility's driving simulator also said that when given a secondary task while the 'car' was in fully autonomous mode, it took the subjects much longer to react to an emergency. "That's when it gets really bad, because they have to switch their attention back on again." Dr Merat said that in an ideal world, taking the human 'out of the loop' in driving provides an argument that there is improved safety. "But we need to understand that drivers know what's going on with the automation, what it is doing, and what happens when it switches off ... because that's where things go wrong. We don't know what happens to drivers when we increase the use of these technologies, when they become more supervisors of systems than actual drivers." Dr Merat also noted that drivers need to be aware of the meaning of the various signals, such as 'beeps', when the vehicle systems are trying to warn about something. She added that finding out the effects on drivers of new technologies in motoring is always trying to catch up with the developing technology. "We can be a million years behind in this, but unfortunately tha