Ducati showcases bike-to-car technology in Vegas

Ducati, together with auto makers Audi and Ford and tech giant Qualcomm, are using this week’s CES 2019 (Consumer Electronics Show) event in Las Vegas to showcase a communication system that interlinks vehicles, street infrastructure and pedestrians.

It’s technology we’ve seen developing within the automotive world for some time and, while Ducati has revealed plans of incorporating radar technology on its motorcycles in order to facilitate rider aids such as blind-spot detection and adaptive cruise control, vehicle-to-vehicle communication has so far been absent from the biking world.

Said to be the first-ever live demonstration in America of the CV2-X technology proving interoperability between a motorcycle, passenger vehicle, pedestrians and roadside infrastructure, demonstration used a Ducati Multistrada 1260 as well as a Ford and Audi passenger car.

Exhibiting three-tiers of communication technology, the first which was vehicle-to-vehicle communication which is aimed to reduce collisions at non line-of-sight intersections and which don’t employ traffic lights. The second was vehicle-to-pedestrian communication aimed to alert the vehicle of the presence of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists, while the third was vehicle-to-infrastructure, designed to alert road users of upcoming changes to their environment such as the featured Work Zone Warning which would alert you to road works.

Part of Ducati’s Safety Road Map 2025 strategy, the Italian firm used the event to confirm the initial stages of this strategy will see ABS Cornering extended to the entire Ducati range by 2020, as well as the first appearance of both a front and rear radar appearing on a production machine the same year.

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More details: Harley-Davidson LiveWire
Ducati developing multi-vehicle comms