LEDs Bring New Light to Car-to-Car Communication

An official website of the United States government. Here's how you know

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites always use a .gov or .mil domain. Before sharing sensitive information online, make sure you’re on a .gov or .mil site by inspecting your browser's address (or "location") bar.

This site is also protected by an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate that's been signed by the U.S. government. The https:// means all transmitted data is encrypted — in other words, any information or browsing history that you provide is transmitted securely.

August 20th, 2014

Drive on a city’s streets at night and you’re guided by artificial lights: glowing traffic signals beckoning you forward, the headlights of a car trailing you, a sign warning of work ahead.

Artificial lights may soon guide your car, too: In the quest for cars that understand the world around them and respond intelligently, a growing number of research engineers are exploring systems that encode signals in LED light.

“We envision car lights transmitting messages that your eyes can’t see,” says Richard Roberts, a research scientist at Intel. “They’re blinking out messages to be used by other automobiles for safety reasons: positioning, collision avoidance, cooperative driving—maybe even someday for autonomous driving.”