NEC Laboratories Europe’s Vehicular Communication Software Empowers Large-scale Car-2-X Trial in Germany with Leading Automobile Makers

Heidelberg and London, December 19, 2011 – NEC Laboratories Europe (NLE) today announced the recent completion of its vehicular communication software for a large-scale Car-2-X trial.

Contracted by a consortium of leading automotive industries, automotive suppliers and the public sector for a 2.5-year design and development effort, NLE delivered core networking software components for a vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication system, enabling data dissemination for real-time road safety, traffic efficiency and infotainment applications. NEC’s software is being used in the large-scale German sim^TD (Safe Intelligent Mobility - Test Field Germany) field trial, where in the upcoming months hundreds of ITS stations consisting of ITS road side stations and ITS vehicle stations fitted into cars will assess the effectiveness of driving assistance, danger alert and other Car-2-X (C2X) applications.

The sim^TD trial, supported by the German ministries BMWi (Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology), BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and BMVBS (Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development), includes 5 car makers (Opel, Audi, BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen), 2 automotive suppliers (Bosch and Continental), a network operator (Deutsche Telekom), as well as the City of Frankfurt and the Hessian State Office for Road and Traffic Affairs as representatives of the public authorities, and several research institutes.

Dr. Heinrich Stuettgen, Vice President of NEC Laboratories Europe said "NEC's participation in the largest C2X trial in Europe highlights the appreciation for our expertise and long-lasting technological contribution to this innovative area."

NLE has been dedicated to advancing vehicular communications for more than a decade. Throughout an entire innovation cycle completed by the current trials, NEC has developed and successfully brought research ideas onto reliable pre-commercial platforms, including playing a key role in standardization activities such as the Car2Car Communication Consortium and ETSI Technical Committee on Intelligent Transportation Systems. NEC also provides its technology and expertise to the European collaborative project DRIVE C2X(*), an initiative linking several national test sites with the common goal of assessing the pan-European impact of cooperative systems. NEC has also participated in the ETSI Cooperative Mobility Services Plugtests™, thereby helping to achieve interoperability of different solutions based on mature standards.

(*)www.drive-c2x.eu