General Motors is developing an all-new driver assistance technology feature designed to help protect pedestrians, cyclists and regular road users by communicating with their mobile phones.

GM’s wireless pedestrian detection technology uses Wi-Fi Direct – the wireless system that allows modern mobiles and smartphones to communicate with each other directly without needing to rely on a shared access point like a phone tower.

Wi-Fi Direct devices can share information between each other within a 200m radius in roughly one second, which makes them ideal for sending signals back to vehicles warning drivers of a pedestrian’s presence.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBVGfz8X_8E

GM global R&D director of the electrical and control systems research lab Nady Boules said wireless pedestrian protection was the next step in the company’s ongoing development of vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems.

“This new wireless capability could warn drivers about pedestrians who might be stepping into the roadway from behind a parked vehicle, or bicyclists who are riding in the car’s blind spot,” Boules said.