India faces a critical road safety crisis, with the highest number of road accidents globally, making it a collective responsibility for every citizen to address this issue urgently. The importance of road safety is so critical that Union Minister Kiran Rijiju said, “Road safety is very important for every citizen. When you go out on the road, there are many rules to prevent accidents. The highest number of road accidents in the world occurs in our country. This is a matter of concern.”
When you’re behind the wheel, nothing tops human awareness and intervention, but technology is now playing its part to complement and offer additional safety features to the person behind, the other car, and people on the road. Qualcomm Technologies is shaping the world of mobility as Express Drives exclusively speaks to Hagai Zyss, Vice President of Product Management at Qualcomm Technologies, who explains how Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology will create connected, smarter, and safer vehicles with affordable technology.
What is V2X technology?
Time and time again, we have all said this line — safety is paramount. The downside of the latest and state-of-the-art technology is the cost that’s passed on to the vehicle buyer. Hence, the new features are initially limited to the luxury car segment, and then later they trickle down to the mass market categories. Qualcomm has decided to shake up this age-old mindset and is offering V2X tech that can be customised based on the features equipped in the car, including Level 2 Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS). This new technology does not rely on cellular networks but rather uses direct radio frequency between the two devices or vehicles. This ensures that the vehicle’s connectivity does not rely on infrastructure, which can be a challenge in rural areas.
Zyss decodes this new technology by saying it’s all about creating a connected ecosystem where both vehicles and infrastructure share data that helps in predicting and preventing accidents before they actually take place. For sci-fi movie buffs, this concept will remind them of the movie where the Precrime police department arrests the perpetrator before it happens with the help of the psychic powers of three clairvoyant humans, also called ‘precogs’.
Moving back to Qualcomm’s V2X technology, if the vehicle has ADAS, then it can automatically gently apply the brakes when a pedestrian jaywalks or a vehicle jumps the red light at an intersection. “You can actually understand that somebody’s going to violate it and either alert the driver or even soft-brake the car or hard-brake the car inside, should you provide your advanced safety system,” said Zyss.
He points out that the beauty of this technology is that even non-ADAS vehicles can be equipped with the V2X and will send warning alerts to the driver. “V2X is all about direct, real-time, instantaneous connectivity between road users,” said Zyss. Due to this, live and instant information of a radius of up to 600 metres is available, letting the person behind the wheel know the real-world traffic conditions. This is definitely going to be a must-have smart and safety feature in challenging traffic and a price-conscious market like India.
Beyond four-wheelers: Building a connected ecosystem
The V2X is not limited to four-wheelers and can be used by cyclists, two-wheelers, and three-wheelers, which account for almost 50% of road fatalities in India. This device sends alerts to other vehicles based on overspeeding or wrong direction, so that a fatal accident can be avoided. “Just by having them announce, ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ giving their location, speed, and direction, all of a sudden, everyone around, including trucks, buses, and four-wheelers, can avoid colliding,” Zyss notes.
He further said that the V2X can be integrated with traffic and roadside cameras, where it can detect if there is somebody violating a red light, and every other vehicle can be aware: somebody is crossing the intersection, slow down.
Addressing privacy concerns
With so much exchange of data, the million-dollar question arises whether privacy can be breached. Zyss minces no words and states, “The tech only cares about your location and safety, not who you are. The system uses security measures to safeguard against hacking, as the data remains anonymous and encrypted.
