Title: Design, implementation and test of a wireless peer-to-peer network for roadway incident exchange

Authors: Trevor Harmon, James Marca, Pete Martini, Raymond Klefstad

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA. ' Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine, California, USA. ' Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA. ' Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA

Abstract: The existing paradigms for vehicular traffic monitoring and control have a strong infrastructure bias. Data collection and processing typically require a support system that may be prohibitively expensive or suffer from scalability issues. Current research aims to solve these problems with local-area wireless technology, allowing the vehicles themselves to form an ad hoc network. Our vision of such a traveller-centric, zero-infrastructure system is called Autonet. In this paper, we present the key Autonet concepts, validated through a prototype implementation and field measurements. In the prototype, an in-vehicle client with an informative GUI continuously listens for other clients, exchanging knowledge about network state once contact is made. We show that knowledge about traffic conditions can be propagated successfully using this system. The prototype also enabled benchmarking of 802.11b wireless technology in a transportation environment. These measurements establish its maximum throughput at approximately 3,500 traffic incidents for two vehicles passing at highway speeds.

Keywords: 802.11b; ad hoc networks; COTS; GPS; peer-to-peer; P2P networks; prototype; wireless networks; traffic monitoring; traffic control; wireless LANs; WLANs; traffic conditions; traffic incidents; vehicle monitoring; vehicle communication.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVICS.2008.022359

International Journal of Vehicle Information and Communication Systems, 2008 Vol.1 No.3/4, pp.288 - 305

Published online: 02 Jan 2009 *

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