As part of a research project that’s being headed by Daimler AG, 120 vehicles will be sent to the field in Germany’s Frankfurt Rhine-Main metropolitan region to test out a technology concept called C2X Communication, or car-to-X communication. This will stand as one of the largest field tests of the technology to date, and the trials will run up until the end of the year.
The trials take on the model provided by social networking in that the cars communicate with each other while they are connected to traffic infrastructure. This way, the cars update each other on how the traffic situation is at the areas where they currently are. This way, people will be alerted regarding areas where traffic is bad and they can then take alternate routes.
The main goal of the trials is to determine how viable the systems are for day-to-day applications. It is all part of the Safe Intelligent Mobility – test field Germany (simTD) project, which is a collaboration between different German automakers as well as research institutes, communications companies, auto suppliers, and the public.
Daimler has strongly supported C2X development, and is also involved in C2X research in the United States. Who knows—if proven viable, this technology might come as standard issue for future Mercedes-Benz models.