http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=5561
Networking: 'Smart highways' emerging
Commuters cruise down Interstate 95 from New York City to Washington,
D.C., bumper to bumper, at a speed of 120 miles per hour -- about a
two-hour trip at that speed. Do they worry about collisions? Not at
all. They can even check the Dow Jones industrial average or browse
new books on Amazon.com while they motor.
Those commuters, sometime in the not-so-distant future, will be
traveling along smart highways: networks of sensors connected to
satellite links controlling collision-detection computers onboard the
vehicles. The technology will do all the driving, experts told UPI's
Networking.
"There is simply no limit to what we can achieve as the technology
improves," said Ed Schlesinger, founding director of the General
Motors collaborative laboratory at the Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh. "Cars will become nodes in a worldwide network delivering
information to that network and getting information from it."
Scientists and engineers at Carnegie Mellon and other leading
research universities, as well as at the automakers in Detroit, are
working on networking technologies that will enable vehicles to
communicate and share data. These technologies will provide drivers
with information about traffic flow, road conditions and even the
optimal place to park. The networking also will help drivers alter
their travel routes if conditions warrant, and even slow down to
avoid a serious incident.
"Though investments in technology have fallen off precipitously since
the Internet implosion, there has been a renewed focus in this
century on productive technology -- not technology for technology's
sake, but with a purpose, focus and bottom-line rationale," said
Anthony J. Mayo, co-author of the forthcoming book, "In Their Time:
The Greatest Business Leaders of the 20th Century" (Harvard Business
Press, 2005).
Indeed, according to Carnegie Mellon researchers, today's typical
highway lane accommodates 2,000 vehicles per hour, but with
networking and automation, that capacity could be expanded to 6,000.
New peer-to-peer networks will monitor and control each vehicle's
location and speed.
Such an advance could reduce commute times -- and increase worker
productivity -- dramatically, allowing more hours at the office
instead of frittered away in traffic.
Some of the early-stage versions of these exciting technologies
already are being field-tested. Technicians at Motorola and General
Motors are installing mesh networking at a number of race tracks
around the globe, including a recent installation at the famed LeMans
endurance race. The GM Corvette racing team placed first and second
in that 24-hour race last month using the mesh networks, which
provided pit crews with video feeds from the cockpit of the racecars.
It gave the crews the ability to monitor and diagnose problems with
the cars wirelessly.
Soon, this technology could "also help improve the safety of the
driving public on roads outside of the race track," said Gary Grube,
a Motorola corporate vice president in Schaumburg, Ill., near Chicago.
Another smart-highways project, conducted last year, demonstrated how
a sensor-based traffic-management system could work. The project was
undertaken by Siemens AG and a partner in California called E-View
Safety Systems. In one dramatic facet, the test showed how emergency
vehicles could take control of traffic lights while en route to
ensure that ambulances arrived at the emergency rooms as quickly as
possible.
The highway of the future will incorporate a number of technologies,
such as video and data transfer, as their prices continue to drop and
their power and performance increase.
"Computer-based technology, the foundation for much of the innovation
in business since the 1980s, will undoubtedly continue to be refined
in the new century," Mayo said. "Particularly as advances in wireless
communications, data integration, video streaming and graphic
transfer become more affordable and accessible."
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
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