Article by Elisabeth Uhlemann Verifying the performance and correctness of a smart factory is difficult. This is because it is more complicated to verify the functionality of a distributed system than it is to verify a centralized system. Verifying a distributed heterogeneous system such as a factory is even worse. Now imagine that the distributedRead More
Reviewed by Richard Yu, Associate EiC, VTS Mobile World The fifth-generation (5G) has been developed for supporting diverse services, such as enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communication (mMTC) and ultrareliable lowlatency communication (URLLC). The latter two constitute Internet of Things (IoT) enablers. The new spectrum released for 5G deployments are primarily above 3 GHzRead More
Article by Elisabeth Uhlemann A cloud-based service, Connected Safety, will allow Volvo trucks and Volvo cars to automatically alert each other to hazardous traffic situations. The two independent vehicle manufacturers are allowing their respective vehicles to share real-time traffic hazard information via their clouds. When a driver switches on the hazard warning lights, the vehicleRead More
Article by Elisabeth Uhlemann The Japanese government aims to compile guidelines, address legal issues, and set up new safety regulations for autonomous vehicles to speed up deployment of self-driving cars in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. To do this, the liability in the event of an accident involving an autonomous car must beRead More
Article by Elisabeth Uhlemann Autonomous vehicles should be connected. Autonomous vehicles may be combining data from cameras, onboard sensors, and lidars, they may be intelligent, learning, and adapting to each situation; but, if they are not connected, then they are not very smart. Active safety functions have been taken about as far as they canRead More
Article by Elisabeth Uhlemann Recently, there has been great interest in connected vehicles and autonomous driving. Through the years, I have written about different alliances, coalitions, and partnerships between vehicle manufacturers and map suppliers, telecom operators, concept developers, mobility as a service (MaaS) providers, software companies, hardware companies, and, of course, other vehicle manufacturers. InRead More
Article by Luis Silva and Cristian De Angelo The improvement of computational resources transformed the Modeling and Simulation (M&S) stage into a key task during the prototyping of novel vehicle concepts. It helps the design allowing the evaluation of new concepts/topologies under faulty or dangerous conditions. It is also useful for tuning controllers and evaluatingRead More
Article by Elisabeth Uhlemann The Toyota Research Institute is exploring blockchain and distributed ledger technology to foster a digital environment where both business and consumer users may securely share driving and autonomous vehicle testing data, manage ride-share and car-share transactions, and store vehicle usage information that could be employed in setting insurance rates. Blockchain technologyRead More
Elisabeth Uhlemann Recently, several media outlets reported that the Trump administration had decided to drop the proposed mandate on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications on all light vehicles because of security concerns. This caused the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue the following statement on 8 November 2017:Read More
Reviewed by Richard Yu, Associate EiC A new era is upon us—an era where Internet connectivity is available everywhere and at all times. Cars have become very complex computer systems with about 100 million lines of code and more than 100 electronic control units (ECUs) interconnected to control everything, including steering, acceleration, brakes, and otherRead More
By Arash Kalatbarisoltani, Loïc Boulon, David Lupien St-Pierre Electric sources are widely used in order to design cleaner vehicles (batteries, fuel cell systems, ultra-capacitors, etc.). However, numerous electrified vehicles are produced in small series and the design of a specific energy source for a given vehicle is both time consuming and expensive. In this way,Read More
Smart balancing systems: an ultimate solution to the weakest cell problem? By Jorge Varela Barreras, Damien Frost, David A. Howey, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, UK The series connection of cells in a battery pack, like in any chain, means that performance is limited by the weakest cell. If the cells were identical, thisRead More