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Next-Gen Smart Cars Predict Crashes

Tracy Staedter, Discovery News

So far, the system can foresee a dangerous collision about two to five seconds before it happens.

"In terms of communications, the building blocks are there. We have GPS, security mechanisms, Wi-Fi between cars and with the infrastructure. The challenge is to make them work together and in a time-critical way," said Javier Gozalvez, associate professor in the Ubiquitous Wireless Communications Research Laboratory at the University of Miguel Hernandez in Elche, Spain.

A safety system like this has to have 100 percent reliability, said Gozalvez, and that doesn't exist in our current mobile and wireless communication devices. Anyone who's experienced a dropped call can tell you that. And anyone with a GPS navigator who has driven through a tunnel can attest to the temporary blank map.

Zarzosa and his team will be working to address these issues and others as they move forward.

About his collision prototype, he said: "It is not the ultimate safety system. It has to be mixed up with other available information on the vehicle."

Related Links:

Tracy Staedter's blog: What the Tech?

The Reposit Project

How Stuff Works: Smart Cars