Car demo
The demonstration revealed the capability of smart connected vehicles to detect and respond to risky situations effectively. Credit: Armando G Alonso.

Cohda Wireless has performed a demonstration of a world-first self-driving vehicle in the Adelaide CBD in Australia.

The demonstration aimed to prove the potential for self-driving technology to make Australian streets safer.

Supported by the South Australia Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure’s Future Mobility Lab Fund, the demonstration revealed the capability of smart connected vehicles to detect and respond to risky situations effectively.

It was performed in an area covering two city blocks on Flinders Street, east of Victoria Square.

Smart vehicles have the ability to connect to other vehicles, even when they are far away.

Cohda Wireless chief technical officer professor Paul Alexander said that a potential collision situation would be detected and avoided in advance if the vehicles were connected using the company’s Vehicle-To-Everything (V2X) technology.

“The technology provides the vehicle with an awareness of its environment and risk factors associated with it.”

Alexander further added: “We demonstrated that when vehicles are connected to each other using our smart V2X technology, car one, the connected autonomous vehicle, would detect that car two is approaching the red light at speed and is probably not going to stop. This allows the connected autonomous vehicle to pre-emptively identify and respond to the threat by slowing down and stopping.

“The technology provides the vehicle with an awareness of its environment and risk factors associated with it, consistently and accurately up to ten times per second, enabling it to make decisions that a human being would not be capable of making as the driver of the vehicle.”

Alexander noted that the demonstration was also aimed at proving the efficacy of the technology in enabling vehicles to communicate with each other.

Last year, Cohda demonstrated the efficacy and accuracy of its V2X-Locate system in a New York City trial where sub-metre accuracy was repeatedly demonstrated while driving along Sixth Avenue.