Smoother, safer: 5G set to turn your car into talking & thinking tech navigator

HYDERABAD: What if your car could talk? Not just to other cars zipping past a busy road around you, but also ambulances, two-wheelers and even pedestrians headed your way and help you navigate to your office or home.
What if this technology could help your car detect invisible motorists or pedestrians in your vicinity and alert you in advance? Yes, this is possible by communicating with their vehicles, wearables or even mobile phones and helping avert an accident.

This futuristic scenario has inched one step closer to reality with Japanese auto giant Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) and its Indian arm Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) teaming up with Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IITH) to develop a proof-of-concept (PoC) for use of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication technology, which works on 5G tech, to make Indian roads safer.
While globally this V2X technology is currently under development as a futuristic technology in the 2025-30 timeframe as part of efforts to cut down on traffic accidents, this Suzuki Group-IITH joint research effort is focused on studying applicability of V2X tech in the context of India, which has unique road traffic conditions.
As part of a first-of-its-kind project in India, five prototype MSIL cars, equipped with V2X devices, showcased nearly six scenarios that one normally witnesses on Indian roads at IIT-H campus on Tuesday.