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Communicating with Cars

Professional headshot of Dr. Kumar Yelamarthi in a suit against a brown background.Dr. Kumar Yelamarthi, a faculty member in CMU’s School of Engineering and Technology, proposes a system to better monitor inter-vehicular communication between self-driving cars. Dr. Yelamarthi and his team of graduate students studied LoRa, a wireless communication system that has the potential to enhance the reliability of Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communication.

With technological advancements, the number of self-driving vehicles, such as Tesla, has multiplied over the past few years. With this increase, the concern over safety grows. Dr. Yelamarthi emphasized the importance of having a reliable V2X communication system to ensure safe autonomous operation.

V2X describes the cars’ system that is responsible for the communication between other vehicles and networks, as well as the identification of roadside infrastructure and pedestrians. Through V2X communication, key information including a car’s speed, coordinates, and acceleration are exchanged to help the autonomous vehicles avoid collisions and congestion, reduce travel time, follow traffic signals, etc. With this knowledge, Dr. Yelamarthi and his team worked to address a major challenge associated with V2X communication; smooth transference of real-time data at a high speed.

To address this challenge, the team proposed the implementation of a reliable, compact, and energy-efficient system that relies on LoRa wireless technology. LoRa-based V2X has the potential to reduce network delay and ensure real-time data transference from roadside infrastructure and other vehicles. Through testing and analysis, Dr. Yelamarthi confirmed the revolutionary capabilities of LoRa-based V2X and inspires other researchers to further explore its potential.

At CMU We Do Research, We Do Real World

Story by ORGS intern Hailey Nelson

June 2021