Heads Up

Heads Up, which has issued (US 10,392,012), is aimed at providing safety to drivers on highways and local roads. It relies essentially on three factors: sensing position/speed of adjacent vehicles; having inter-vehicle communications; and sharing near-term navigation directives among proximate vehicles. This enables drivers to receive directives based on advanced knowledge that a close-by vehicle will be exiting at the next exit, for example, or making a right or left turn on a local road. Thus, in addition to the real-time sensing inputs the vehicles are processing, they are also getting advanced information about near-by vehicle navigation directives.

So, for example, a vehicle in the center lane of a three-lane highway would be alerted to the fact that the vehicle on its left side, in the left lane, is being directed to exit at the upcoming exit. With that information, the driver of the vehicle in the center lane may be directed to speed up or slow down to avoid a collision with the vehicle to its left being directed to exit.

The shared excerpts of navigational directives gives each proximate vehicle additional information beyond just real-time sensing data thus adding another level of predictability and accident prevention.