Japanese auto-giant Honda is now moving towards making road intersections safer and smarter for the people.

“Our vision of a smart intersection is one that can have non-connected road users — pedestrians, cyclists — work with those that are connected, like connected cars,” said Ted Klaus, vice president of strategic research at Honda R&D Americas, quoted Digital Trends. In USA, roughly 20 percent of accident fatalities occur at the intersections, Klaus said.

Honda’s smart intersection technology works by tracking those ‘non-connected’ users and controlling those that can be controlled using technology — such as cars, traffic lights, and signaling systems, that will work together to protect the things that can’t be controlled by technology i.e. people walking across the street.






“The key part of this technology is that is able to sense things that you can’t see, so this technology moves us beyond where any on-board sensor is today,” said Jim Keller, Chief Engineer, Honda R&D Americas.

As for how it works, let us assume that a car that is about to run a red light, the intersection system transmits a warning to other drivers approaching the intersection, allowing them to virtually see around corners or other obstructions and brake to avoid a fatal collision.

The system uses dedicated short range communications (DSRC) to communicate with the cars — so-called vehicle-to-everything or V2X communications. However, the vehicle needs to be equipped with a special system to recognize DSRC messages and then display warnings in a car’s head-up display.