Aussie company Cohda primed for vehicle networking

International deals with IT giants bolster SA company's position in car-to-car communications

Adelaide company Cohda Wireless has signed off two deals strengthening its frontline position in one of the auto industry’s most promising growth areas: car-to-car communications. US chipmaker NXP – one of the world’s biggest suppliers of car computing equipment – and networking giant Cisco have both bought stakes in Cohda. The company says the deals boost Cohda's strategic position in a market set to skyrocket in the next few years.

Cohda chief technology officer Paul Alexander told motoring.com.au the NXP buy-in was a natural flow-on from the pair’s existing relationship. “We’ve been using NXP’s chips for some time, so when they saw enough promise, it made sense for them to buy in,” he said.

For Cisco, long one of the biggest names in switching, routing and other networking technologies, the deal represents a toehold in a new growth area. “Under their ‘internet of everything’ banner, the automotive sector is a new area to introduce its solutions taking in hardware, software, services, customisation and so on,” Mr Alexander added.

All parties are keeping quiet on the sums of money involved.

Car networking technology will become increasingly important in the global fleet of the not too distant future. In its early stages, it will see cars talking directly to each other – a technology for which Cohda already sits among the leading suppliers. Cohda systems are already in use in trials around the world such as the US Department of Transport’s Safety Pilot Model Deployment, Germany’s simTD, France’s ScoreF and ERP2 in Singapore.

Later, such networks will expand from car-to-car (C2C) to car-to-X (C2X), taking in roadside and intersection nodes, connecting individual vehicles to wider traffic management and safety infrastructures.

The Car2Car Communication Consortium, the European industry group lobbying for a full set of standards covering C2C and intelligent transport systems, has already announced it wants usable, vehicles on the road by 2015 or 2016. For Cohda, that means big business over the next few years.

Mr Alexander told motoring.com.au that the deals, and others like them, will help speed up time to market for a technology being met with growing anticipation. “Yes, decidedly. That’s what was so attractive about the NXP deal – it secures access to market for us with one of the biggest names in automotive computing.” NXP already supplies the industry with a raft of chips and chipsets covering infotainment, lighting, sensory functions, instrumentation, telematics and timing.

Asked about where Cohda’s technology might make its consumer market debut, he isn’t keen to talk. But speculation is rife that it will turn up first in high-end German product. There’s no shortage of possibility there either – BMW, Daimler, the Volkswagen Group, Ford and Opel are all taking part. So is that other great synonym for safety, Volvo.

Importantly, unlike so many new technologies that can be reserved for luxury buyers, C2C/C2X is inherently made for the mass market. The more cars taking part, the better it is for everyone, so expect the tech to plummet into the volume market very fast. “Some parties have said a year or two,” Mr Alexander said. “Mass uptake will certainly have a dramatic effect on its per-unit cost, making it viable pretty quickly.“

How does C2C/C2X work?

Picture this: you’re nearing some traffic lights at crossroads. They’re green, all’s well, you’re heading into the intersection well below the speed limit without a second thought. But coming towards the intersection on the cross street is a man who’s reading a text message on his phone. Failing to notice the amber in time, he looks up, decides it’s too late to stop and runs the red. Normally it’d be bang, but your car beeps you a warning because his car’s already told it he’s running it through the red. Accident averted.

What’s going on here is that each vehicle is collecting dynamics data – position, speed, direction, forward and lateral acceleration, deceleration etc – and transmitting it ten times a second to those around it. Mr Alexander said wi-fi technology is efficient enough these days for hundreds of nodes to “talk”, each making thousands of assessments per second and responding accordingly.

There’s nothing new about the technology itself. It’s based on the proven 802.11 wireless communications protocol – essentially the “language” by which devices communicate in your standard domestic wi-fi networks.

“Obviously for automotive use, it has to be more robust than the domestic systems, in every way,” said Mr Alexander. “After all, there will be times when it has lives in its hands.”

This will become more the case as the technology’s charter expands. For example, it’s easy to set it up on main roads to pre-empt the passing of emergency vehicles, even imposing temporary changes on traffic signals to give fire, police and ambulances a clear through route.

In time, it will also likely turn into real-time traffic flow management, with cars uploading snapshots of their location and speed as they go, allowing the management system’s servers to aggregate and process the data into a dynamic traffic management system issuing tailored advisories to individual cars.

Eventually, we can expect to see it heading in the direction of autonomous cars, of the kind being trialled by Google in California and Nevada. Systems like Cohda’s complement the rotating line-of-sight sensor systems of the kind being trialled by Google. “Our system can extend the vehicle’s sensory powers beyond line of sight, effectively allowing them to ‘see’ round blind bends,” he said.

Protection from Big Brother

Much of the above opens up big questions on the matter of privacy. Dr Alexander told motoring.com.au this is an area still fraught with contention. The signals are encrypted – that’s sufficient to keep unofficial spying at bay. “But on top of that, the standards emerging include a means of anonymising each chip by having it turn over its [normally unique, indelible] MAC address at regular intervals.

“In other words it’s constantly changing its identity, often enough that you wouldn’t be able to monitor a single vehicle driving through a suburb.”

What is yet to be resolved is that there are some uses for the system where social and commercial utility may win out over privacy. For example in fleet management, there are plenty of uses for systems that track and trace individual vehicles moment to moment.

And what about co-opting it for “black box” functions in accident investigation? “That’s technically well within reach, but raises a whole lot of political, ethical and legal questions. Some of those issues, at least, would be resolved by setting the system up for opt-in, though.”

If there’s one compelling argument for using these systems for such purposes, it’s in mobile phones. “They already present an equal or greater threat to privacy. Car-to-car systems work on proximity, so if there’s no other vehicle or communication node in [relative proximity] close by, there’s no communication. Mobile phones remain connected over a much wider radius, and they’re uniquely identifiable all the time – you can’t buy a SIM card without ID.”

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Aussie company Cohda primed for vehicle networking

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