Aussie firm supporting connected Land Rovers

Cohda Wireless, an Adelaide-based technology has revealed itself as the supplier of the wireless hardware for last month's demonstration of V2X motoring on bush tracks.

The Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Discovery taking part were in constant contact with each other by means of Cohda MK5 On-Board Units.

V2X (vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure) is the name of a global standard for wireless communications between vehicles and connected road-network infrastructure. This traffic networking is essential to the deployment of fully autonomous motoring systems in future. Industry experts and stakeholders are agreed that cars cannot operate autonomously in a vacuum. They must receive and transmit data within a network of mobile and fixed transceivers for the sake of safety and efficiency.

Out in the bush, however, there are no 'talking traffic lights' or line markings, so the multi-million-pound V2X technology presumably assists the driver instead, rather than substituting for the driver.

Information 'learned' by the system (which Terrain Response mode to use, at what location and when) is passed to the vehicle following for safer and easier motoring on tracks, across fords and over rocks. It's this information that's being relayed in the demonstration by the Cohda Wireless units.

Cohda is already a leading light in the push for autonomous motoring (self-drive cars), and has been actively involved in different V2X projects around the world. For that reason the company has "a suite of V2X products focused on the platooning of autonomous vehicles," according to CEO Paul Gray.