Connected cruise control uses vehicle-to-vehicle communication to let automated vehicles respond to multiple cars at a time in an effort to save energy and improve safety.
University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated its effectiveness on public roads, even when just one automated vehicle is moving among human-driven cars.
Vehicle-to-vehicle communication, or V2V, refers to the ability of cars to wirelessly share data including their speed and position in real time. Connected cruise control can adjust a vehicle’s speed based on information obtained through V2V. It’s different from adaptive cruise control in that it tracks more vehicles than just the car in front of it.
The tests on public roads have shown how connected cruise control and V2V between automated and conventional cars performs in a common traffic scenario—a chain-reaction braking and re-accelerating caused by one car at the head of several others. An automated vehicle utilizing connected cruise control was able to brake with 60 percent less of the G-force required by a car with a human driver.
Read more at University of Michigan
Image: A timelapse of traffic at night in Ann Arbor. (Credit: Marcin Szczepanski)