Google may already be experimenting with its own driverless cars, but the technology being tested in this university town by a group of academic, industry and government researchers could be retrofitted into ordinary cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that vehicle-to-vehicle transmitters will add only about $350 to the total cost of a vehicle by 2020. The safety agency expects prices to fall as the mandate approaches, as has already happened with features like rearview cameras, which will be required in 2018. By the end of the decade, if all goes as planned, the typical American vehicle will be part of a network, constantly sharing information as it travels.

At a government-sponsored pilot program here in Ann Arbor, being run by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, nearly 3,000 vehicles driven by volunteers are being tested in real-world conditions. Transmitters in the vehicles send and receive information 10 times a second: speed, direction, location and other data that automakers and federal regulators hope will usher in a new era of road safety.

Drivers today can buy cars that monitor blind spots, warn them when they veer out of a lane and even park themselves. Such features are overseen by sensors inside the car: cameras, radar and lasers that scan the road like electronic eyes.

Like any pair of eyes, however, they can warn about only what they can see. The technology developing in Ann Arbor focuses on hazards even electronic eyes can’t spot.