Safety Considerations for Cooperating Vehicles using Wireless Communication

Even though improvements in automotive safety have caused a significant decline in the number of traffic fatalities there is a strong need for further work. One important area is wireless communication from vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure which enables a host of new cooperative traffic applications ranging from collision avoidance to intelligent cruise control. However, using cooperation between vehicles as an enabler for safety-related functionality raises new issues on system dependability. In this paper we characterize the domain of cooperating vehicles and cooperative situation awareness and suggest a system architecture that promotes independent development and verification of safety functions