From space to road: Ford engineers trial robotics technology originally developed for Cosmonauts

The prototype system, developed by engineers from carmaker Ford and St Petersburg State Polytechnic University, has been designed to enable vehicles to reliably communicate with each other via the cloud when connectivity conditions are poor.

The technology is underpinned by a so-called “intelligent connectivity manager”, a software tool which enables a vehicle to choose from the strongest available wireless connection - whether it’s Wi-FI, mobile-phone based, or direct communication with other vehicles or infrastructure - in order to transmit data to the cloud.

During trials the team examined the challenges of sharing critical data regarding a road emergency with drivers in an area that has poor connectivity.

In one potential scenario, the research team outlined how a car entering a tunnel and encountering black ice, but without a mobile phone or Wi-Fi signal, could for instance, use the system to instantly identify passing vehicles that do have connectivity and pass on this information via the car’s vehicle-to-vehicle channel.