Slashdot Mirror
FCC Approves Highway Radiosystems
prostoalex writes "According to iWon/AP, the FCC has approved a range of radio frequencies to be used on US highways for transmitting important traffic information. The technology is still 5-10 years away from being implemented in cars and on the roads, but the FCC has set aside a special area of the spectrum instead of sharing the frequencies with other applications and devices. As for uses, there's currently a test running at an intersection in McLean, Va., where sensors can automatically warn a motorist when another car is approaching, thus helping to avoid a collision."
Does someone have a decent brakedown of the FM freq allocations? It seems like that space is getting crowded.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
FCC OKs New Frequency for Highway Systems
Email this Story
Dec 17, 12:16 PM (ET)
By JONATHAN D. SALANT
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal regulators approved a step Wednesday toward developing smart highways, where warning signals automatically transmitted to drivers can prevent traffic accidents.
The Federal Communications Commission set aside an area of broadcast spectrum to transmit those signals, rather than have them share space with electronic toll sensors, cell phones and garage door openers.
"Smart radio technology means smarter highways, safer roads and a more secure homeland," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said.
Transportation Department officials are testing the technology at an intersection in McLean, Va., where sensors can automatically warn a motorist when another car is approaching, thus helping to avoid a collision.
The technology, still five to 10 years away from being installed in cars and along highways, also could use a beep, a dashboard light or an electronic voice to tell drivers when it's safe to change lanes, or when to put on the breaks to avoid rear-ending the motorist in front.
"There were a couple of cars ahead of me this morning that would have used this collision avoidance system," FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said.
Wednesday's FCC vote gave that technology its own frequencies.
"This is a piece of a larger picture," said John Muleta, chief of the FCC's wireless bureau.
The warnings can be received within 100 yards of the transmitters, and thus are only for communications between vehicles or between a vehicle and a sensor along the road.
"This new radio spectrum will help prevent crashes, bring important real-time information into cars and let drivers concentrate on driving," Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said.
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
This is it fellow /.'ers ... Don your tin foil hats and think happy thoughts!
What's next, putting people in helicopters that fly over highways to get the information to broadcast?
paintball
What the hell is to stop this from becoming as useless as the current emergancy vehicle light switching system (ala traffic lights), that used infrared frequencies? Some schmoe is going to make a device that makes your car think you're going to rear-end someone at his whim... Until finally the whole system will have to be thrown out, due to abuse.
This thing will be abused before it's even anywhere near fully deployed... what a waste... and as per the article, how about getting people to focus on driving... as in paying attention to thing around you... how the hell is making sure you don't rear-end the guy infront of you not a normal driving task? WTF?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Does anyone know which intersection this is being tested at? Kind of cool to see my old home town mentioned.
there's currently a test running at an intersection in McLean, Va., where sensors can automatically warn a motorist when another car is approaching, thus helping to avoid a collision.
I guess looking both directions while approaching and intersection is impossible.
"where sensors can automatically warn a motorist when another car is approaching, thus helping to avoid a collision."
Who would have guessed... they've invented traffic lights!
Don't they already have a device that allows people to see around blind corners? I beleive it's called a "mirror"... but then, I guess they can't get a patent on that technology.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
People ignore the data in that spectrum, and its right in front of their eyes!
Unless it calls people (OK, myself included), on their cell phone, no one will ever notice. Priorities: 1. The conversation about what bar to meet your friends at, 2. Lighting another cigarette, 3. The road, and finally 4. The radio
This technology could help save lives during right-turn-on-red accidents that happen at obscured intersections. Sensors on the cross-street detect triffic on the greenlighted street, relay a signal to the stop light, and warn the right-turners if it is unsafe to turn.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
IMHO, it would be more economical to mandate that car manufacturers put some kind of collision detection hardware in the cars themselves. This seems like an unnecessary taxpayer expense that will be woefully out of date before it's rolled out.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
over the X-Band
Let's not all suck at the same time please
Wanna bet this tech is gonna be used to track speeding and other unsafe driving violations?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Has anyone thought of or has taken staps toward integrating a radar detector with wireless and GPS to create a long-range, fault tolerant radar/lidar detection network? Seems like this this is a patent wating to happen...
FAQ here.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
IEEE 802.11 is working on this NOW. The Task Group is called WAVE (Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment), and the next meeting is at the IEEE 802.11 Interim Meeting in Vancouver in January. IEEE Meetings are open to all, BTW. Just pay your registration fee, show up and participate.
One of my long-standing dreams (realized in movies like Minority Report) is automated, self-diriving cars.
That's where I think the technology should be heading. Look at TV remotes- they prove that the average Joe doesn't want to move 3 feet on his own to change the channel.
If you got a car that reliably drove itself, even if it was expensive, you'd have people falling over to buy one.
This statement is solely an opinion. Kindly take it as such in all cases.
This sounds like a good tool. The only concerns I have are the following:
1) It doesn't replace the people actually DRIVING the vehicle needing to be at their utmost alert. We've all seen what cellphones and driving do to people.
2) It doesn't get used later on as a spammer's paradise. The last thing I want is that every car in the country comes standard with these alert systems only to hear, while driving down the highway, "ALERT! Your car's engine is not optimized! Go to carspeed.com to help!"
3) It doesn't get used as a monitoring network. I'd assume since it would be sending personalized messages to cars given their position in traffic, cars around them specifically, etc., that you'd need some sort of unique identifier per car. Let's not abuse this like the FastTrack crap we heard about earlier, and have a constant, rudimentary GPS system in every car that uses it.
Other than that, it seems like it'd be a great tool for informing drivers (non-invasively) on what's going on on the highways.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Clearly this technology infringes on the Recording Industry's ability to broadcast copyrighted material over radio waves. If people are to tune in to these stations, they will be unable to hear that yet-to-be-created boy band.
:)
Of course you can record these broadcasts, turn them into mp3s and share them using kazaa.
The FCC's release says it's been allocated 5.850 - 5.925 GHz. The press release (it's a PDF) has some background on the service, and also a few notes on things that have to happen before the use of this new radio service can become widespread.
I thought that the AM band was already the unused frequencies they used for traffic reports.
Truckin'- got my chips cashed in
Keep Truckin' like the doodah man
Together - more or less in line
*LOOK OUT! YOU'RE GONNA CRASH!*
Just keep truckin' on
RFID tracking of vehicles.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
We have RDS in the states, you just need a tuner that can handle the piggy-backed data. RDS runs over existing FM frequencies, and requires the Radio stations to buy devices which allow them to put RDS data in their signals.
This systems is a completely different band. It's Out of Band in regards to any existing broadcast system. The concept near as I can tell, is a municipalty would install some sort of sensor(s) at a high-risk area (like the intersection mentioned) that would allow directed broadcast to a vehicle or vehicles in a specific area (100 yard limit) in order to warn or inform them.
The vehicles would be equipped with the capability to receive and relay the broadcast to the occupants (or later, possibly directly fed to some sort of software control system which could then do a visual warning instead of a audio one).
So no, this isn't anything like RDS, but thanks for being a typical slashdot noobie and not reading the article.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Grab your cheap amplifiers and start hacking!
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Why are they deciding who gets to broadcast over what frequency.
It's not like they could stop you if you decided to start transmitting with a bunch of stuff from Radio Shack?
What's this country coming to?
$30 Off All Plans: Use code TRIPLESAWBUCK
Sounds like an insurance nightmare waiting to happen... Instead of just 'I thought it was clear!' you get 'I thought it was clear and it didn't say I couldn't go!'
The sad part is that you are right. An invention like this will probably save 3 lives, but kill 1 other person (just a guess, YMMV). The 1 person who gets killed/injured sues the city over the "faulty" warning system and the city takes a big hit. With the system, the city becomes liable.
Without the system, the city is not liable for all the people killed in these right-turn accidents. The 3 people whose lives were saved never notice that their lives were saved.
In the case of 3 steps forward and 1 step back, everyone complains/sues over the one step back and fails to see the net benefit.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The moment I switch on the "auto-pilot", I'm no longer responsible for the control of my vehicle; now the company that made the device is liable for any accident the vehicle causes. That being said, do you want to be the owner fo the company making the device? Won't anybody who gets into any accident with one of these in the car simply claim "the auto-pilot did it!" Even if you switch it on scant milliseconds before plowing into that group of pedestrians, it's still the devices fault, not yours! Now imagine your ex-wife has one of these in her car, and you're crossing the street in front of her...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Sure they can set aside space for the frequency in the spectrum, but how easy would it be to DOS attack a system like this. I'm sure they would have specific security setup, but seriously, how annoying would it be to pass through a section of town and have all your warning lights sounds etc go off from someone saturating the spectrum....
TruePunk | Games
There was an article a few days ago about smart billboards. The content of the billboard was based on the radio stations that the traffic was listening to.
I know that not everybody listens to the radio, but maybe it would be a good idea to have "smart" traffic lights that could predict a car about to run a red light based on how fast the radio signal is approaching.
Many years ago I remember a collision avoidance trial in a steel plant between locomotives. We were not sucessful due to interfernce from subsonic frequencies thru the high MegaHertz range. Microvave was not feasable at the time.
... it seems to me that there is no specific need for a spectrum allocation.
I have believed that collision avoidance is quite possible but some mechanism to diminish "scattering" was necessary.
Given the wavelength and directionality of this
I don't know about you, but I've already got the early warning system installed in my car. It's called a "passenger". Specifically, that passenger that suddenly shouts "OH, OH, OH, OH!" as you driving down the street.
Then after you slam on the brakes to avoid an unseen danger (while hoping you don't get rear-ended in the process), your passenger continues, "I didn't know there was an In 'N Out here!".
...like the RDS TP/TA system...
...which has been used in Europe for what, almost a decade now...
RDS is designed to be super-imposed on an existing broadcast signal (double sideband suppressed sub carrier blah blah.) It is applicable to broadcasters that have a loud signal covering a wide area.
Allow me to save many readers the 10 seconds it would take to discover what RDS TP/TA means: TP (Traffic Program flag) is a part of the RDS signal that indicates that a particular RDS broadcaster provides "traffic announcements" a some unspecified time. TA (Traffic Announcement flag) is another flag that indicates when an "traffic announcement" is being broadcast.
If you want to use RDS (via existing broadcasters) to send a signal to a specific vehicle to prevent a collision, you have to multiplex the data gathered by a large number of sites into a single RDS stream, broadcast it, and then find a way for all the receivers to filter out irrelevant RDS data (thousands of other cars not about to collide.) Or you might scale down RDS to deal with things like individual intersections, but you would then need a reserved spectrum...which is exactly what the FCC just approved.
A network of transceivers designed to monitor, signal and possibly control traffic has a number of obvious technical constraints that have probably never been considered by RDS. Off the top of my head I think of; latency guarantees, non-interference in confined areas, an elaborate definition of codes necessary to impart traffic relevant information in real-time, priorities, etc. RDS doesn't do all this.
RDS is widely available in the US. I have it and I didn't even know it until my Bose started displaying song titles broadcast by local stations. It probably implements TP/TA for all I know. I've never bothered to look.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Read the article.
TP/TA allows your radio to automatically select a different station for traffic announcements. It doesn't really have any idea of location, other than being within the broad reach of a station.
This system would be more location-based.
"the FCC has approved a range of radio frequencies to be used on US highways for transmitting important traffic information."
Didn't this happen a long time ago? I believe is was called AM radio,
Vote for Pedro
there's currently a test running at an intersection in McLean, Va., where sensors can automatically warn a motorist when another car is approaching, thus helping to avoid a collision."
I have technology similar to that in my car, it's called my eyes!
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
ok, so this can help drivers not to violate red traffic lights. Won't the traffic camers installed at intersections potentially record fewer violations of drivers going through the red light? (you know, take a snapshot of the car's license plate; send a bill to the owner.) Won't local communities demand a subsidy for the lost revenue due to this sensor system?
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
First of all, I remember a system similar to this from when I spent some time in Germany a few years back. I would be driving down the road and suddenly the radio would switch over to this emergency frequency. You could not switch the channel once it came on or disable the feature altogether. I found it to be extremely annoying and altogether useless. Second, how long do you think that it will take spammers/telemarketers to put this to nefarious use. I magine driving down the road and suddenly every station is interupted with an advertisement using the pirated system? Make the transmitter mobile and short range and you'll have roving advertisers all over the road. You drive within, say, 50 feet of their vehicle and you get the ad. Oh what fun that will be! Obviuosly, I'm not a big proponent.
From the blurb:
"Smart radio technology means smarter highways, safer roads and a more secure homeland," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said.
How, precisely, would a radio broadcast regulated to be useful no further than 100 meters away be useful in securing the "Homeland"? At first, I chalked that up to some sort of bureaucratic lemming syndrome where anything that happens needs to be connected to securing something. But then I put my brain in gear and figured it out; what a great way to create an industrial strength vehicle tracking system. Build out a collision avoidance system and, "discover" how useful it is in tracking bad people, and then...generalize!
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Many interstates are busy enough to allow for peer-to-peer communications between cars, which would allow for cheep communication up and down the road.
:)
perhaps 802.11g in every car would be a better idea. thoughts of gnutella hosts dance in my head.
along with others
Hmmm... Add the possibility of a whole new meaning to the term "denial of service" or, better (worse) yet, jamming... :-/
Used to be to get people active in correcting an injustice, now it could only be called incitement. Advertisers lining up hundreds in their sights with women as the scapegoat. Have to love psychology, liken unto firing a gun into a crowd of people.
You've come along way baby.
I choose asshole, it's easier on the heart.
Instead of paying attention to the road, lets put sensors everywhere that watch the road for you and tell you if someone's going to hit you...
sigh.
Many of you don't know the DC metropolitan area and don't know where McClean, VA is located. McClean is a rather expensive expensive place to live with many expensive houses located there. Additionally, it has my favorite Japanese restaurant, Tachibana, where all the waitresses actually can speak Japanese. Great sushi at Tachibana. Don't order the full dinner unless you are really hungry. The full dinner comes with your choice of soup (e.g., miso), salad, appetizer, and dessert. Right now (because it is getting cold), a nice bowl of yosenabe sounds good.
But I digress. Right down the road (Dolly Madison) as you head eastward parallel to the Potomac River is a sign that points you towards the...
CIA Headquarters! Put your tin-foil hats on folks, the cows are coming in and they are wired for sound, video and have RFID chips in them!
Frankly, many companies that do business with the folks at the three letter agency (and other government agencies) have offices in McClean. I have to wonder if this is the reason why this test is being done in McClean. Then again, you mostly see expensive cars there so maybe they don't want to find out what the lawyers will do when a Lexus hits a BMW.
"Intelligent highways" kill two birds with one stone -- surveillance of the public plus assauging the public the roads are safe despite the 42,000 annual U.S. fatalities.
Basicly, you take existing electronic/GPS navigation device (the kind that give you directions on where to go).
Then, you modify the map data to record speed limits for each road.
Then, you have some facility (radio, sattelite, whatever) that can tell the device where there are roadworks, accidents, traffic snarls and stuff. It would then calculate the most efficent (i.e. fastest) way for you to get from point a to point b.
Perhaps that new "send data over FM radio" thingo I heard about could be used.
Personally, I'm looking forward to driving around in a world full of vehicles with automated collision response systems. The first thing I'm doing is hacking the rear emitter so the next time some nitwit on a phone is compelled to tailgate me, I "inform" his BMW that I am now traveling BACKWARDS!
Muahahahaha
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Earlie this week I posted some ideas related to this on my blog, having not heard about this initiative.
The basic idea is as follows: "A tight pack of cars is the perfect situation for an ad-hoc network.
As a car approaches a pack of other cars, it connects to their network. The pack of cars can tell the new car the average speed and size of the network (and if there's GPS information, maybe even the beginning and end of the pack), which the driver--maybe with the help of some mapping software--can use to determine whether to stay in the pack or get off at the next available opportunity"
The technology is 802.11 based. It is currently referenced as 802.11p. The standard implements IPv6, and modifies the MAC to enforce channel priorities (safety first, McDonalds drive through second). The standard currently includes no applications. It is generally expected that various industries (toll, ITS, entertainment, etc.) will each standardize applications for their respective industry. Expect to see fairly comprehensive security systems implemented in applications that are public safety or financial in nature.
I remember 80s GM Delco radios had the ability to receive traffic broadcasts that would override your tape (and later CD player) audio.
And again, no, it's not like that.
In the UK (as far as I know) all speed tracking things, which is mostly permanant installs are required to be listed publicly before they go live. So GPS only and GPS + detector units just alert you to where the traps are, you just update with your computer. Here's the newest one I found no mention of Wifi updating though, seems to need a wired connection.
The NTIA (part of the Department of Commerce) has a wall-sized poster which shows the frequency allocations from 3 kHz all the way up to 300 GHz... you can either buy one from the Feds for $7.50, or go here and download it as a PDF file.
This sounds like a high-tech extension of the programmable roadside traffic warning billboard (you know, those two-wheeled trailers with a big orange dot matrix billboard flashing useless info like "Men at work"). Extremely useful in theory, but in practice only as good as the information fed. In my town we have tons of these displays flashing information that's weeks out of date or so generic that you'd hardly need an expensive programmable display for that. The thing is, buying the equipment is only the first step. Actually using it meaningfully and consistently involves training people and extra work and money, and is less likely to happen long-term.
going into nyc via the lincoln tunnel your radio gets taken over and they broadcast traffic info.
I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
"Smart radio technology means smarter highways, safer roads and a more secure homeland," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said.
I'm actually more afraid that this will become another intrusive method of spying on people's everyday activities. Don't forget Mr. Powell's connections to the Big House. I'm always wary of the way they throw the "security" idea around (Security for who??) when they want to get their way.
What won't they want to know, and be able to know now?
I wonder if the future hackers will modify this to notify of upcoming patrol cars. Bye bye speeding tickets.
Later,
Phil
your link to an iwon.com address tells me you are trying to use the slashdot effect to make some cash. since the editors have approved this I anticipate the floodgates have now been opened and we will see further putrification of submissions and articles here on slashdot.
comment directly in my journal
It's more advanced, so it might be able to record enough information to for other traffic infractions - which I wouldn't necessarily mind. Running a late yellow is technically legal (as far as a single camera can tell), but just as dangerous as running a red.
It sounds like there could be enough data being recorded to reasonably charge people for dangerous driving with this type of system (given the hypothetical nature of the system at this time, yeah, why not!).
The ARPA net nodes constantly measured how much time it took for at packet to reach a destination.
The measurements was kept up-to-date for each route out of the node.
When a packet arrived to a node, it was sent out via the fastest route to its destination using a simple table lookup.
If we let some cars (e.g. taxis) report their progress back to a central system, the system can use that info to "route" cars to their destination - if and only if the system knows where the cars should go.
A very simple transponder in each car will suffice to tell the router where your car wants to go - the router won't need to know anything else about your car, e.g. no ID's will be needed.
Will it work? It seems almost too simple.
-- From Denmark
Can a licensee of a spectrum band choose to broadcast a digital signal on it at will? Is there commercial equipment that a municipality can deploy to provide an 802.11 network on it? How much FM bandwidth is necessary for an HDTV signal?
--
make install -not war
I'm a EE. I have RF experience and I believe I have all the tools necessary to implement and crack any system that can be deployed. There is nothing special about my skillset. If the government mandates these in vehicles, -someone- will have a schematic in Phrack 100 that will render these useless.
People should just learn how to fucking drive. Now there's a concept.
I did something like this a long time ago in University. I used 144Mhz band packet radio, and I didn't add the radar detector bit - just a signal, but that's not difficult. It was very effective. There is the Amateur Radio Position Reporting system that's built right into my Kenwood handheld radio, along with a 2400baud TNC. You connect up a GPS and it broadcasts your callsign and position. Pretty slick eh.
:-)
Do you know what obstruction of justice means? This is what you would be charged with. Radar detectors are very effective, good ones will pick up leakage and/or scatter from other cars being hit. (mainly the latter). Not so useful on a country road.. but..
Aside from the obstruction of justice, a police car recognition system mounted on a couple key points along city roadsides will do the same thing. As you're using a video camera and mearly reporting the position of a police car, there is no overt act there, I don't think. If you know where the police cars are, you can usually guess where they are going and based on their rate of speed, whether or not they are trolling for speeders. More interestingly is since a lot of highways broadcast their traffic over the web, this could be used as a source of data for the application.
The applications of a mobile version of this device is left as an exercise to the reader.
..don't panic
He's talking about fixed mirrors at the intersection, on the side of the road, so that drivers can see around blind corners.
Interesting side note: one of the features of RDS mentioned in my car handbook is the "Disaster Alert" function that goes off in the event of another 3 mile island. Helpfully, if I don't want to listen to the 4 minute warning, with a single button press I can get back to my CD and groove my way into oblivion...
Could the frequency be used to transfer pr0n?
I have never posted to say mod this up or mod this down and I will not start now. I wanted to say, besure to check the links before you mod, but this one is so gross pronographic, please do so only if you are over 18. I will report this abuse.