New Pedestrian-to-Vehicle Communication using UWB Technology Targeted for Japan Market

We have mentioned about vehicle-to-vehicle communication plan in Japan earlier, now seems that the local YRP Ubiquitous Networking laboratory has announced a new protocol utilizing UWB (Ultra Wide Band) targeted for pedestrian-to-vehicle communication during Tronshow 2010 held in Tokyo last week.

The UWB communication utilizes an ultra wide bandwidth of about 1GHz range riding on a 3-5GHz frequency span and it can sustain as high as 100Mbps throughput suitable for various usages. And with its extremely efficient transmission power of around 0.1mW versus 50mW consumed by conventional 802.11a/b/g wireless technology, it can be used to link up to pedestrians’ mobile devices to electric-powered vehicles on the road so that they can be alerted in the form of ringing or light blinking on smartphone when an electric vehicle is approaching. According to the source, it can detect the vehicle positioning very accurately with less than 30cm error margin which is best fitted for this usage model. However, since it can detect the radius range of up to 30 meter (on straight road) only, the technology may not so effective for speeding vehicles (those faster than 40km/h) on the road.

No information on when it will be implemented yet, this is one of the major milestones towards having human-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle communications once the necessary infrastructures are in place.