(Originally published on LinkedIn in June 2024)
Connected cars, as the name implies, are connected, over some or other wireless technology to a server on the internet. Usually, this connection is realized using cellular mobile technology, your 2Gs, 3Gs, 4Gs, 5Gs and such. The car usually uses this connection to receive services like latest map data for the navigation, or live traffic information on a route. As such, a connected car doesn’t have to autonomous (meaning that all the connected services might be being used for the benefit of a human driver) but autonomous cars are almost certainly connected (they need the latest map data at the least and benefit greatly from the live traffic data, weather data, and other kinds of useful information).
I want to especially mention here a part of connected car technology that I have dedicated a decade of my life working on – V2X. It stands for Vehicle-to-everything communication. A vehicle equipped with this wireless communication technology can exchange data and information with other vehicles in real time. At the most basic, this is the data about position, speed, type of vehicle etc and is highly useful for safe operation of the vehicles because your vehicle can “hear” the other vehicles (over V2X) even before it can see them (over camera or Radar for example). V2X is not limited to vehicles only. Traffic lights and other roadside infrastructure can be equipped with it and can provide useful traffic information such as the timing data for a traffic light, lane closures etc. This helps the vehicles in planning the driving behavior as well as route. (My first ever project in V2X was building a system where the vehicle receives traffic light information from a traffic light and advises the driver to optimize the vehicle speed for a smoother acceleration/deceleration profile which reduces fuel wastage and the also the driver stress)
Connected cars can do a lot more than that actually. You must have heard of the IoT (Internet of Things) Technology where your electric and electronic devices or even the light bulbs in your home are connected to the internet and can be controlled by a simple app on your phone. You must have heart of such IoT-enabled “smart” refrigerators that can image scan the inside of the fridge to detect the stuff you have (or don’t have) and create a shopping list in advance or maybe even order the groceries for you all on its own. Now imagine that your smart fridge actually orders your groceries and your car picks it up autonomously. Scary isn’t it! But on the other hand, it saves you the embarrassment of buying much more of the deep-fried frozen food and much less of fresh fruits and vegetables.