At one of the US’s first smart cities, Peachtree Corners, Curiosity Lab has partnered with Spoke to deliver a connected IoT ecosystem for vulnerable road users (VRUs).
Peachtree Corners is powered by real-world connected infrastructure and 5G. By deploying Spoke’s technology, it now aims to connect VRUs to the surrounding mobility ecosystem to ensure they are seen and protected.
This partnership will allow Spoke to continue testing and developing its VRU2X technologies using Curiosity Lab’s living smart city ecosystem where drivers, pedestrians and autonomous vehicles use the public roadways each day.
Spoke’s VRU2X system uses three levels of connectivity. This includes C-V2X to provide immediate communication between cars and VRUs, LTE/5G cellular communications for advanced contextual awareness alerts between cars and VRUs and a radar system for vehicle identification and visualisation.
Using these layers of connectivity, Spoke’s technology ensures VRUs such as pedestrians and cyclists can be identified by vehicles, and that VRUs are aware of nearby vehicles.
Spoke Chief Strategy and Operation Officer, Reid Sigety said:The technology we have created is a culmination of our passion for cycling, our own experiences feeling unsafe or being injured as a VRU and our vision of making roadways safer for all.
With our partner Qualcomm, we have reimagined the form factor for C-V2X technology, making this solution small enough to fit on a bike without disturbing the biker or impacting the performance. Dedicated hardware provides additional safety benefits that help reduce crashing and incident-related congestion while providing high location accuracy with an anonymous connection 10 times per second.
Partnering with Curiosity Lab not only allows us to continue to improve and develop our solutions further, but also gives us a space to see how these solutions will improve in real-world scenarios.
Throughout the partnership, Spoke will test its C-V2X and VRU2X technologies using Commsignia’s C-V2X central system, which will measure their effectiveness.
It will also integrate its technologies into Curiosity Lab’s existing infrastructure with the aim of developing new standards for C-V2X messaging.
This technology will be featured at Peachtree Corners’ Curiosity Lab Criterium on 26 April, where professional cyclists will race while equipped with C-V2X units.
An Audi vehicle will also be present at the event to demonstrate how the technology works to connect cars to the Spoke technology.
Peachtree Corners City Manager Brian Johnson said:As a City Manager, safety for our residents, cyclists and pedestrians is a top priority. Each year nearly 1,000 bicyclists are killed and over 130,000 are injured in crashes or incidents on public roadways in the United States. Spoke's technology is the first C-V2X implementation made for pedestrians, cyclists and other VRUs to use while along public roadways. With this in mind, making the decision to partner with Spoke and test these technologies in our city was an easy one.
This month the city will be hosting our first-ever Curiosity Lab Criterium, where we will be showcasing and demonstrating Spoke's technology alongside Audi. This criterium is more than a bike race – it is the City of Peachtree Corners highlighting the importance of VRU and cyclist safety along public streets.
