Officials at the signing ceremony.
The Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) located at the Qatar Science & Technology Park and Cohda Wireless, headquartered in Adelaide, Australia, announced the signing of a technology collaboration agreement in support of deploying connected & automated vehicle systems in Qatar. The agreement was signed at the QMIC booth at QITCOM exhibition. The event was attended by executives from both entities and invited guests.
Since 2010, QMIC has been active in the area of connected vehicles (V2X) R&D, and back in April 2014 it carried out the first field demo of an industry-compliant V2X system and applications in the Middle East and North Africa region at the Qatar Science & Technology Park. As the next step to facilitate potential full deployment of V2X and CAV in Qatar, QMIC has committed plans to carry out a field pilot of V2X and CAV system and applications in 2017/2018 in Qatar.
As part of the MOU, both parties will collaborate to support QMIC’s efforts in carrying out a V2X/CAV field pilot in Qatar and to jointly explore collaborating on other V2X/CAV projects in Qatar and the region. This partnership will leverage the significant expertise QMIC has accumulated in all aspects related to V2X/CAV as well as the broad international knowledge and leading experience of Cohda Wireless in V2X/CAV.
Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya, the Executive Director and CEO of QMIC, said: “We are very pleased with the progress we made in realising our strategy in V2X and in successfully transitioning our effort from the R&D stage to the field piloting and early deployment stage. Given the large technology & services scope of this area, securing international partnerships with like-minded players is critical for sustainable success. Hence, we are extremely pleased to work with Cohda Wireless to fully leverage their technology and field experience in this domain and in a way to complement ours”.
Bernd Luebben, Vice-President Business Development of Cohda Wireless commented on this partnership by saying, “As the market leader for software solutions in the fields of connected autonomous vehicles and V2X, Cohda Wireless is very pleased to be working with QMIC towards the shared goal of making roads safer, greener, and less congested. Connected Autonomous Vehicles requires the most mature V2X communications technology and very low signal delay. Cohda has the most mature, reliable and best performing V2X and CAV solutions available.”
Connected-vehicles technology (V2X) is a key enabler of next generation road safety and is a critical enabler for automated driving. A study by the US Department of Transportation concluded that connected vehicles could potentially address up to 80% of road accidents involving non-impaired drivers. As such, deploying V2X in Qatar can contribute significantly to improving road safety. In addition, V2X can offer many other benefits in terms of driver comfort and traffic efficiency, as this emerging technology will open a door for many new applications.
