LED or accelerate the development of driverless cars?

Intel scientist Richard Roberts revealed that he is working to establish a set of IEEE regulations to guide the future development of automotive visible light communication (VLC).

VLC makes use of the LED light emitted by the headlights of the car, thus making it possible to create a low-cost automotive mesh network.

Intel has been committed to VLC research since 2008, and Roberts is seeking to develop this technology into a platform for communication between vehicles.

Roberts is an advocate of the system, and his colleagues tried to use a series of rapid fluctuations in the visible light to achieve the information transfer between vehicles. The LED flash is so short that the human eye is unable to rub off, but it can provide information about the traffic along the road, possible collisions, and other parts of the vehicle that can be used as part of an unmanned system.

Although the data rate from one vehicle to another is low enough, a common camera can be used to get it, and the LED that is used in the car today can deliver the data.

Compared with all new vehicles equipped with radar or laser, VLC will be a cheaper option. In spite of the fact that the car is aware of the surrounding environment, while radar and lasers are more efficient, they are also expensive in price sensitive markets. To make a basic feasible mesh network, at least 10% cars on the road need to be equipped with radar or laser system.

VLC on the line of sight (line-of-sight), relative to the radar or wireless network, it is a disadvantage because of the weather and the environment, harsh lighting conditions can interfere with LED flash, which makes VLC as a spontaneous solution driving technology is not feasible. However, VLC can provide additional protection for future driverless cars, but also to accelerate its development process.

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