The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration is working with four companies to develop new radio-frequency identification technology for roadways. Officials see RFID as a way to warn drivers of, for instance, impending intersection collisions and vehicle rollovers.

Specifically, the government and vendors are investigating technology called dedicated short-range communications, which is related to RFID. The vendors are Mark IV Industries, Raytheon, Sirit, and TransCore.

A prototype system co-developed by the quartet is expected to be ready for testing in about 18 months. The Federal Communications Commission has assigned a block of high-bandwidth radio spectrum for dedicated-communications products--5.850 to 5.925 GHz.

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