February 2015
6
S
afety
& S
ecurity
The connected car addresses
congestion and safety challenges
By Steven Keeping,
Mouser Electronics
This article shows
how linking vehicles
to the Internet of Things (IoT)
will make journeys faster,
cleaner and cheaper.
We’re devoting an increasing proportion of
our lives to the road. The average American
spends ten percent of their waking time (some
600 hours a year) behind the wheel. Worse yet,
according to the Texas A&M Transportation
Institute, U.S. commuters waste 38 hours per
year stuck in traffic. In Washington D.C. and
Los Angeles, the situation is even more seri-
ous with drivers squandering 67 and 61 hours,
respectively, staring at the license plate of the
stationary vehicle in front of them. The prob-
lems don’t stop with lost man-hours. Traf-
fic congestion burns fuel (2.9 billion gallons
per year in the U.S.) and adds to atmospheric
greenhouse gases (to the tune of 56 billion
pounds of CO2 each year.) Wasted fuel and
lost work time cost the U.S. an estimated $98
billion in 2011 according to a report prepared
for the American Automobile Association
(AAA).
Automotive makers work continuously to
address these challenges. Cars have become
comfortable cocoons due to sound insulation,
supportive seats, and air conditioning; acci-
dents are more survivable thanks to innova-
tions such as anti-lock brakes, airbags, and
crumple zones, and drivers are able to ease
the tedium of congestion by accessing in-car
entertainment ranging from digital-radio
broadcasts to music from their smartphone
and backseat video from in-seat DVD play-
ers. And in recent years, in-car systems have
been supplemented by internet connectiv-
ity. That connectivity has allowed drivers and
passengers to remain “plugged in” to the busi-
ness and social networks they take for granted
when at home or in the office, turning hours
stuck in traffic into productive time.
But what if internet connectivity could be
taken a stage further? What if the most mod-
est temperature sensor all the way up to the
engine management unit and satellite nav-
igation could send and receive information
via the internet without the involvement of
the driver or passengers? Such connectivity
could further enhance the safety and comfort
of vehicle occupants while addressing many
of the congestion challenges of modern trans-
portation. This vehicle of the future already
has a name, the connected car. The IoT dif-
fers from the traditional internet by replac-
ing the main source of data input (humans)
with computers, machines and sensors. Such
a development ensures the physical world is
intimately interfaced to the internet without
the need for human intervention.
The implications of this are huge, because
unlike humans - who make mistakes and get
bored - systems dedicated to the job of gath-
ering data perform their designated role with-
out error or fatigue. Kevin Ashton, the man
credited with coining the phrase the “Inter-
net of Things” back in 1999, noted: “If we had
computers that knew everything there was to
know about things - using data they gathered
without any help from us - we would be able
to track and count everything, and greatly
reduce waste, loss and cost.” Networking com-
pany Cisco Systems, among others, describes
the IoT as the convergence of Internet Pro-
tocol (IP) networks - millions of computers
and billions of other IP devices in the home
and office - with mobile networks - millions
of voice communications and billions of data
packets from internet-capable mobiles - to
form a network of a trillion end points, using
a common infrastructure, ranging from sim-
ple sensors to machines to more complex
objects such as cars.
The phrase reduce waste, loss and cost, is
something of a mantra to the automotive
sector, so, together with silicon vendors that
supply the industry, auto manufacturers are
among the most enthusiastic proponents of
the IoT. One key driver for this enthusiasm is
the opportunity to introduce cost-saving mea-
sures such as performing over-the-air updates
to the car software – particularly in key com-
ponents such as the engine management unit
(EMU). This could allow critical modifica-
tions to be made without the cost of recalling
potentially millions of vehicles. But whatever
the motivation for the automotive companies,
the addition of IoT to the car will also be a
boon for consumers.
