Brandmotion LLC has announced a collaboration with DENSO Products and Services Americas Inc. based in Long Beach, California, to offer a one-stop service to cities seeking to equip vehicles with advanced Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology. DENSO is a leading global mobility supplier and Brandmotion is the recognized leader in vehicle integration for V2X deployments. By combining forces, the two companies say they can offer cities and agencies an easy path to vehicle integration for V2X deployment testing.

V2X technology has been proposed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) as the best way to address the chronic death toll on America’s roadways, with nearly 37,000 lives lost and a record 6,721 pedestrians killed at intersections in 2020. Leading city managers and state transportation agencies are looking to deploy V2X technology regionally to reduce vehicle crashes and fatalities and improve pedestrian safety. 

Up until now, many cities seeking to deploy the life-saving V2X technology have had to assemble the elements of a large vehicle deployment manually, developing specifications and coordinating multiple vendors to ensure a successful outcome and meaningful results. The DENSO-Brandmotion partnership simplifies the process of equipping vehicles for long-term testing.

Brandmotion has served the Tampa Connected Vehicle (CV) Pilot for five years and provided responsive professional grade automotive integration and service capability. DENSO is the On Board Unit (OBU) supplier to OEMs for Tampa’s CV Pilot Phase 4, bringing true “Tier 1” development capabilities to the project.

Bob Frey, program manager for the Tampa CV Pilot said, “Having worked with both companies to complete vehicle integration services for V2X deployments, our experience is that they bring complete high-quality solutions to our deployments and have excelled at helping us deploy transportation safety applications from concept to operating on the ‘street’ on schedule. To me, that is the most important aspect of these safety projects, getting applications ‘out in the street’ so the public benefits.”

The partnership between DENSO and Brandmotion will provide transportation agencies with the following vehicle-related deployment services:

• DENSO On Board Unit (OBU) platform (Hercules) has the ability to run and process applications that support both Cellular V2X (C-V2X) communications and Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) in an automotive environment (while DSRC is still permitted by the United State Federal Communication Commission (FCC)). 
• Standard set of applications, including Blindspot/Lane Change Warning, Electronic Emergency Brake Light, Forward Crash Warning, Intersection Movement Assist, Red Light Violation Warning, and Traffic Signal Priority 
• Custom application development for specific agency application goals 
• Thorough vehicle-specific installation planning, vehicle system design and validation 
• From small to large-scale installation and tech support

“DENSO has a long history of supplying high-quality V2X hardware and software to meet customer requirements. DENSO was the first company to provide DSRC components for the Japanese market. We have supplied high-quality V2X hardware and software to North American customers to support technology validation for over a decade. Our latest generation North American V2X platform (Hercules) builds on our past experience, and we are pleased to focus on increased deployments in partnership with Brandmotion,” said Sue Graham, DENSO director, Advanced Engineering Group.

“We are committed to supporting USDOT’s national focus on achieving roadside infrastructure and equipped vehicles to advance the safety benefit without delay and to provide the state agencies with ‘real-time’ road data. Brandmotion has been honored to serve as the vehicle integrator of choice to national V2X deployments for over six years, and to have had the opportunity to install more than 3,000 OBUs through 16 state deployments nationwide. As interest in V2X technology increases, we are pleased to partner with DENSO to offer the highest quality on board equipment available,” said Jeff Varick, founder of Brandmotion.