Inter-vehicle communications and their applications to intelligent vehicles: an overview

This paper surveys the inter-vehicle communications and the applications to intelligent vehicles. The inter-vehicle communications, defined here as communications among vehicles for ITS applications, are featured by that it can extend the horizon of drivers and on-board sensors. Systems with the inter-vehicle communications are, thus, much beneficial on the road traffic safety and efficiency. One of the earliest studies on the inter-vehicle communications was started in Japan in the early 1980s. In the recent automated platooning and cooperative driving systems, the inter-vehicle communications play an essential role, because they enable vehicles to obtain data difficult or impossible to measure with on-board sensors. The media used in the inter-vehicle communications include infrared, micro wave and millimeter wave, and various kinds of protocol are employed for the experiments. At present there are many technological and non-technological issues for practical use.