Verizon and Honda are working together, in cooperation with the University of Michigan’s Mcity, to improve road safety with the help of 5G.

Honda has been on the forefront of autonomous vehicle research, recently releasing the world’s first Level 3 autonomous car. The company is working with Verizon to see if 5G and mobile edge computing (MEC) can improve road safety, while reducing the need for onboard AI processing.

The goal is to use 5G and MEC to help vehicles better communicate with other vehicles, road infrastructure and pedestrians to better avoid collisions. For example, if a pedestrian is crossing the road, but obscured from view by a building or parked vehicle, smart intersection cameras could alert oncoming drivers of the danger.

“Honda’s research collaboration with Verizon is an important step in our multi-year effort to develop connected vehicle safety technology to realize our vision for a collision-free society,” said Ehsan Moradi Pari, Ph.D, research group lead at Honda’s Advanced Technology Research Division. “While the research is preliminary and not intended as a product feature at this time, 5G-enabled vehicle communication and MEC have the potential to advance safety for everyone sharing the road.”

“The ability to move computing power to the edge of our 5G network is an essential building block for autonomous and connected vehicles, helping cars to communicate with each other in near real-time and with sensors and cameras installed in streets and traffic lights,” said Sanyogita Shamsunder, vice president of Technology Development and 5G Labs at Verizon. “When you consider that roughly 42,000 people were killed in car accidents last year and 94% of accidents are caused by human error, our new technologies including 5G and MEC can help drivers ‘see’ things before the human eye can register and react helping to prevent collisions and save lives.”

The collaboration is further evidence of the far-reaching impact 5G, AI and edge computing will have on a wide range of industries.