Another kick on 5.9GHz DSRC Technology in the U.S.

according to the attendees at the ITS America annual conference at National Harbor Maryland, Obama administration officials are very interested in road pricing and other ITS technologies. Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) / road used charges are the major topics being discussed. Candidate technologies for such ITS programms include RFID, 5.9GHz DSRC, passive techonolgies, tec.

See the original article:
US officials very interested in VMT/road use charges - ITSA people

and the statement from Turnock, the CTO of Mark IV:
http://www.tollroadsnews.com/sites/default/files/Turnock.pdf

The U.S. GPS may have difficulty from 2010 on

"It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption. If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected." stated in a report released on April 7, 2009, by US Government Accountability Office (GAO). According to GAO's report the reason is the failure of the US Air Force to successfully complete the GPS IIF satellite program that is three years behind schedule now. It's likely to have old satellites starting to fail and service quality of GPS degrading in 2010.

Well, it sounds like a tragedy to the current GPS navigator users and all business using GPS based location information. But, on the other hand, it's also a positive news for other global positioning systems, like the European Galileo and the Chinese Compass projects, to come into the play.

An AMULETT for Pedestrian Safety with C2X Communication

The research project AMULETT funded by Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs focuses on the personal safety of pedestrian using C2X communication. That is realized through the cooperative sensor system between the car and the transponder carried by the pedestrian.

This three year research project was led by BMW Research and Technology in together with Continental Safety Engineering International GmBH, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, TUM and ZENTEC GmbH. On 6th of May 2009, AMULETT will presentes the results to the public.

Source: http://www.bmwblog.com/2009/04/22/bmw-car-2-x-communication-improves-pedestrian-safety/

Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Platform Demostrated by European CVIS Project

11th Dec. 2008, Berlin, a large amount of participants have witnessed the live demonstration of the universal Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communication platform developed by the European Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project. The demonstration was performed at the test site of German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin-Adlershof.

Two cars communicating with each other and with the road infrastructure have been demonstrated using a mobile router with multiple communication interfaces and innovative positioning techniques. The demonstration showed a seamless connection was maintained the communication interface switching between 3G/UMTS cellular network to WLAN, as well as a smooth handover between infrared and 3G cellular systems. Besides, the denonstration covered also the enhanced positing, real-time maps and location referencing, with precesion higher than one meter.

*Pictures from CVIS project

Orignal news release

Photo courtesy to CVIS Project

The Vehicle Infrastrcture Integration (VII) Program Adopted A New Name: IntelliDrive(SM )

The well know initiative of Research Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) , Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) program, adopted a new name and logo for attracting growing interest and excitement across the global transportation research community.

The newly adopted name, according to the announcement from RITA on Jan. 9, 2009, is IntelliDrive^SM. And the new logo can be found at: http://www.its.dot.gov/intellidrive/index.htm. According to the announcement, "Though its name has changed, the IntelliDrive^SM program's focus remains: to develop a networked environment supporting very high speed transactions among vehicles (V2V), and between vehicles and infrastructure components (V2I) or hand held devices (V2D) to enable numerous safety and mobility applications."

The original version of this announcement
IntelliDriveSM - Q&A

ITS Research at Tongji University, China

Thanks to Google web alert, I got a chance to learn the research performed at Broadband Wireless Communication and Multimedia Laboratory, Tongji University, China. There are some very impressive demonstrations showing their researches on Dedicated Short Range Communication system, Pedestrian and Vehicle Detection based on Video and Autonomous Driving Vehicle.

For the for information and the demonstration videos clips can be found at:
http://wm.tongji.edu.cn/research_areas.aspx

Have fun! :-)

Wireless Wolfsburg and Auto@web on CeBIT 09

Hannover, 6 Mar., 2009. Volkswagen showcased the projects "Autp@web" and wireless Wolfsburg on CeBIT 2009.

A Tiguan provided wireless internet access was shown to be able to provide the driver with up-to-date information about the environment and surroundings, e.g., the city's event calender, with a litst of local attractions and veneus. This vehicle was build by Volkswagen Group Research within the project "auto@web" and the wireless infrastructure in the city Wolfsburg, one of the biggest connected WiFi city-wide networks in Germany, was deploimented by the project Wireless Wolfsburg.

Related source:
Volkswagen to showcase the "auto@web" project at CeBIT
Wolfsburg, Germany and Volkswagen launch Wi-Fi test bed
Volkswagen’s Internet car talks to citywide Wi-Fi network
The City of Wolfsburg, Germany and Volkswagen Launch 'Wireless Wolfsburg' Using Tropos Networks.
"Wireless Wolfsburg" – Forschungsprojekt auf der Internationalen Zuliefererbörse (IZB) vorgestellt

Car-2-Car Communication System from University of Sourth Australia

Sydney, 13 Feb. 2009 -- A active safety system using Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology has been developed by a team from University of South Australia. The system use DSRC combining GPS for car communication aiming at safety applications like danger warning. The field trails of this system developed by Cohda Wireless and University of SA have been conducted in the US and Europe, and a large-scale trial is planned for Adelaide, according to the news.

News sources:
- Talking cars alert to danger and may avert crashes at www.news.com.au
- Soon, cars will talk to each other to avert accidents at sindhtoday
- University Of South Australia Says Inter-Car Communication Could Be A Reality By 2012 at www.themotorreport.com.au
- Getting cars talking to reduce accidents at www.australianit.news.com.au
- Cars to become wireless nodes with DSRC radio tech at www.geek.com
- The Next Node on the Net: Your Car! at www.readwriteweb.com

Electronic Nervous System for the Modern Vehicle

Driver assistance system using cameras and sensors is about to have dramatic effect on the automobile. The article by Christoph Hammerschmidt from EETimes Europe provided a glance on the state of the art on CMOS image sensors and DSP technologies applied in driver assistance systems. As an outlook, the article also revealed that driver assistance systems are evolving to a kind of electronic nervous system for the modern car, which is able to perform lane maintaining, traffic sign recognition, pedestrian recognition and even virtual situation imaging using car-to-car communication.

The article is available at: The thinking car sees a clear road ahead @ EETimes Dec. 2008

"Active Safety Car" Project in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany

09, Jan. 2009 -- A consortium of six companies led by Delphi Deutschland has launched the research project, namely Active Safety Car, working towards the automotive-based system that utilizes on-board cameras and sensors, as well as car-to-car communication to improve the traffic safety. The project is partly founded by the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state government.

The aim of the project is to develop a system that uses cameras, radars and sensors not only to recognize, but also share and exchange the information with other vehicles about hazards. Therefore, the focuses of research will be real-time image processing, pattern recognition, on-board real-time information processing, and car-to-car communication.

* Figure from allesueberautotechnik.de

* Figure from allesueberautotechnik.de

The consortium consists of Delphi Deutschland, Wuppertal University, Ceteq GmbH & Co KG,
Riedel Communications, and Volkswagen AG. The research tasks cover the following ares:
* Pedestrian safety through pedestrian detection and warning
* Vehicle detection and warning,
* Accident prediction and warning of critical situations,
* Prototype implementation
* Camera based pedestrian and vehicle recognition
* Car-to-Car or Car-to-Infrastructure communication

Source and figure courtesy:
allesueberautotechnik: Active Safety Car
EEtimes: Cars share cameras, radar sensors
www.elektroniknet.de: Projekt »Active Safety Car« gestartet