Mitsubishi Electric Seeks to Improve Autonomous Tech with Commsignia Ltd V2X Software
Show of hands, who wants a self-driving car? Yeah, the consumer base is little split on this one. Some people would love to have a self-driving car, but others don’t trust the computer onboard. Other consumers just don’t trust other drivers, which is a commonly held way of thinking. What good is a self-driving car if everyone else is behind the wheel? Making self-driving cars the norm would require a network of vehicles that can communicate with each other to keep all cars on the road safe and secure. Well, that’s the goal for Mitsubishi Electric, having entered into a partnership with Commsignia Ltd. to deliver Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology to the auto market.
America may be far off from allowing autonomous cars to enter the retail market, but that doesn’t stop startups from producing and testing autonomous technology. In other parts of the world, the governments of those countries are already allowing the installation and commercial use of V2X systems in automobiles. So, what is V2X technology? Just like the name entails, it’s the communication between vehicles and everything else. Many automakers have already employed this with cars connected to smartphones and smart speakers (Amazon Alexa, Google Home), but what about having cars talk to one another? Mitsubishi Electric has been working on this for years now, even developing software that makes it easier for vehicles on a long trip stay connected to one another like a tailgate.
The idea behind what Commsignia and Mitsubishi Electric are working on it’s the optimization of the mass-producing HDL systems by Mitsubishi Electric with the integration of communication software, security functions, and application software. So far, Mitsubishi Electric has the foundation done. Since 2017, the company has been releasing bits and pieces of its autonomous car technology using light-detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology, car-mounted GPS antennas, laser scanners, and cameras to create its Mobile Mapping System (MMS), able to gather data and create a 3D digital environment in real time. In 2020, Mitsubishi Electric enhanced its autonomous tech with a newly developed LiDAR system, and in 2022, wowed the public at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show with concepts about changing city infrastructure so that cars could talk to buildings, traffic lights, and power grids.
Simplifying all of that, since changing city infrastructure would cost billions of dollars, the goal now is to create a network where autonomous cars can talk to one another. By combining Commsignia’s V2X solution with Mitsubishi Electric’s HDL technology, software that is capable of accurately detecting conditions surrounding a vehicle on the road and greatly improving the accuracy of its driving, regardless of the driving conditions. For instance, when driving around a curve, an onboard camera is as blind as a human driver as to what’s coming around the bend. Instead, with V2X technology and onboard sensors, the oncoming vehicle can communicate with the other to let it know its position on the road and cause both vehicles to confirm and stay in their respective lanes to lower the risk of and avoid a potential collision. Just one step towards that network we mentioned, but a big help in giving drivers time to react to hazardous conditions up ahead…until we have a computer doing it for us.
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