Readers of Autobild and Computerbild have voted: The “Digital Guardian Angel” is the trendsetter in the Safety category of the Connected Car Award 2021. The app from Continental and Deutscher Telekom/T-Systems warns particularly vulnerable road users of an impending collision with vehicles. The solution was developed as part of the “Reallabor Hamburg” project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. Continental and Telekom presented the collision warning system for the first time at the World Congress for Intelligent Transport Systems in Hamburg in October.
The collision warning system is based on satellite positioning, acceleration sensors, mobile communications and edge cloud computing – a spatially distributed cloud infrastructure integrated into the mobile communications network. Here’s how it works: the car transmits its position and acceleration values to Edge Cloud Computing via mobile communications. The cyclist also sends the same information to the Edge Cloud via smartphone or networked bike computer. It calculates the paths for the next five seconds and sends a warning to both the car and the cyclist’s terminal if a collision is imminent. To ensure that this information reaches both road users as quickly as possible, the Edge Cloud computer in the mobile network closest to the location of the potential collision is always used.
Accident-free driving is a central development goal at Continental. The Connected Car Award for the ‘Digital Guardian Angel’ developed jointly with Deutsche Telekom is an important signal that our safety solutions are highly relevant for all road users.
“Not least the great response from readers at the Connected Car Award has encouraged us to pursue the solution further,” explains Oliver Bahns, responsible for Connected Mobility at T-Systems. “With its 5G infrastructure and edge computing, Telekom provides the basis for introducing the Digital Guardian Angel in Germany.”
