Validation of a vehicle emulation platform supporting OBD-II communications

© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.In the next few years, important developments are expected in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) area. One of the key issues enabling future solutions is achieving an effective integration between mobile apps and vehicles. Such integration can be efficiently achieved on all existing vehicles by relying on the On Board Diagnostic (OBD-II) interface. This allows obtaining critical information such as speed, fuel consumption, gas emissions and system failures. In this paper we propose a vehicle emulation platform, called VEWE, that allows developing and testing OBD-II aware applications. The advantages of this approach include: avoiding the need for a real vehicle, allowing to easily generate realistic vehicle parameter patterns, and supporting emulated GPS functionality. We evaluate our platform by conducting a performance analysis in terms of OBD-II response times and channel capacity when relying on a Bluetooth adapter. We compare our results with respect to those obtained in real vehicles, and demonstrate that our VEWE platform behaves similarly to realistic on board devices, thereby providing a complete and reliable platform for smartphone application development.This work was partially supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain, under Grant TIN2011-27543-C03-01Alvear Alvear, Ó.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM.; Cano Escribá, JC.; Manzoni, P. (2015). Validation of a vehicle emulation platform supporting OBD-II communications. https://doi.org/10.1109/CCNC.2015.7158092

EYES : a novel overtaking assistance system for vehicular networks

Developments in the ITS area are received with great expectation by both consumers and industry. Despite their huge potential benefits, ITS solutions suffer from the slow pace of adoption by manufacturers. In this paper we propose EYES, an ITS system that aims at helping drivers in overtaking. The system autonomously creates a network of the devices running EYES, and provides drivers with a video feed from the vehicle located just ahead, thus presenting a better view of any vehicles coming from the opposite direction and the road ahead. This is specially useful when the front view of the driver is blocked by large vehicles, and thus the decision whether to overtake can be taken based on the visuals provided by the application. We have validated EYES, the proposed overtaking assistance system, in both indoor and realistic scenarios involving vehicular network, and preliminary results allow being optimistic about its effectiveness and applicability

An ITS solution providing real-time visual overtaking assistance using smartphones

© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.ITS solutions suffer from the slow pace of adoption by manufacturers despite the interest shown by both consumers and industry. Our goal is to develop ITS applications using already available technologies to make them affordable, quick to deploy, and easy to adopt. In this paper we introduce an ITS system for overtaking assistance that provides drivers with a real-time video feed from the vehicle located just in front. This provides a better view of the road ahead, and of any vehicles travelling in the opposite direction, being especially useful when the front view of the driver is blocked by large vehicles. We evaluated our application using H.264 and MJPEG video encoding formats, and determined the most effective codec choice for our case. Experimental results allow us to be optimistic about the effectiveness and applicability of smartphones in providing overtaking assistance based on video streaming in vehicular networks.This work was partially supported by the European Commission under Svagata.eu, the Erasmus Mundus Programme, Action 2 (EMA2) and the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, Proyectos I+D+I 2014, Spain, under Grant TEC2014-52690-R.Patra, S.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM.; Cano Escribá, JC.; Manzoni, P. (2015). An ITS solution providing real-time visual overtaking assistance using smartphones. IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/LCN.2015.7366320

Mobile On-board Vehicle Event Recorder: MOVER

The rapid development of smart-phone technology in recent years has lead to many smart-phone owners owning out-of-date devices, equipped with useful technologies, which are no longer in use. These devices are valuable resources that can be harnessed to improve users’ lives. This project aims at leveraging these older, unused devices to help improve road safety, specifically through the improved response time of emergency services to accident locations. An Android application — Mobile On-board Vehicle Event Recorder (MOVER) — was designed and built for the purpose of detecting car accidents through the use of acceleration thresholds. Driving data was gathered and crash simulations were run. With this data, testing and analysis were conducted in order to determine an acceleration threshold that separates normal driving from accident situations as accurately as possible. With this application, users can leverage their previous or current mobile devices to improve road safety - for themselves, and their area as a whole. A promising level of accuracy was achieved, but significant improvements can be made to the application. Large opportunity for future work exists in the field, and hopefully through the development of this application, other researchers may be more inclined to investigate and test such future work

Motorcycle detection for ADAS through camera and V2V communication, a comparative analysis of two modern technologies

Motorcycles are one of the most dangerous means of transportation. Its death toll is higher than in others, due to the inherent vulnerability of motorcycle drivers. The latest strategies in Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) are trying to mitigate this problem by applying the advances of modern technologies to the road transport. This paper presents two different approaches on motorcycle protection, based on two of the most modern available technologies in ADAS, i.e. Computer Vision and Vehicle to Vehicle Communication (V2V). The first approach is based on data fusion of Laser Scanner and Computer Vision, providing accurate obstacle detection and localization based on laser scanner, and obstacle classification using computer vision and laser. The second approach is based on ad-hoc V2V technology and provides detection in case of occlusion for visual sensors. Both technologies have been tested in the presented work, and a performance comparison is given. Tests performed in different driving situations allows to measure the performance of every algorithm and the limitations of each of them based on empirical and scientific foundations. The conclusions of the presented work help foster of expert systems in the automotive sector by providing further discussion of the viability and impact from each of these systems in real scenarios

Vaness: DNS em redes veiculares para suporte a utilizadores itinerantes

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaVehicular networks, also known as VANETs, are an ad-hoc network formed by vehicles and road-side units. Nowadays they have been attracting big interest both from researchers as from the automotive industry. With the upcoming of automotive specific operating systems and self-driving cars, the use of applications on vehicles and the integration with common mobile devices is becoming a big part of VANETs. Although many advances have been made on this field, there is still a big discrepancy between the communication layer services provided by VANETs and the user level services, namely those accessible through mobile applications on other networks and technologies. Users and developers are accustomed to user-to-user or user-tobusiness communication without explicit concerns related with the available communication transport layer. Such is not possible in VANETs since people may use more than one vehicle. However, to send a message to a specific user in these networks, there is a need to know the ID of the vehicle where the user is, meaning that there is a lack of services that map each individual user to VANETs endpoint (vehicle identification). This dissertation work proposes VANESS, a naming service as a resource to support user-to-user communication within a heterogeneous scenario comprising typical ISP scenario and VANETs focused on mobile devices. The proposed system is able to map the user to an end point either locally (i.e. there is not internet connection at all), online (i.e. system is not in a vehicular network but has direct internet connection) and using a gateway (i.e. the system is in a vehicular network where some of the nodes have internet access and will act as a gateway). VANESS was fully implemented on android OS with results proving his viability, and partially on iOS showing its multiplatform capabilities.As redes veiculares, também conhecidas por VANETs, são redes ad-hoc formadas por veículos e road-site units. Hoje em dia estas redes têm atraído bastante interesse tanto por parte de investigadores como da indústria automóvel. Com o aparecimento de sistemas operativos especificamente dedicados a automóveis e carros de condução autónoma, o uso de aplicações em veículos e a integração com dipositivos móveis está-se a tornar uma parte cada vez maior nas VANETs. Apesar dos grandes avanços tecnológicos realizados nesta área, ainda existe uma grande discrepância entre os serviços de camada de comunicação disponibilizados pelas VANETs e os serviços ao nível do utilizador, nomeadamente aqueles acessíveis a partir de aplicações móveis noutras redes e tecnologias. Os utilizadores e programadores estão habituados a interações utilizador-utilizador ou utilizadorempresa sem preocupações explícitas sobre a camada de transporte em causa. Isto não é possível em redes VANETs, uma vez que cada pessoa pode usar vários veículos. No entanto, uma mensagem para ser enviada para um utilizador específico através destas redes precisa do indentificador do veículo onde tal utilizador está, ou seja, existe uma falta de serviços que mapeiem cada utilizador individual a nós na VANET (identificação do veículo). O trabalho desta dissertação propõe o sistema VANESS, um serviço de nomes (naming service) disponibilizado como um recurso para suporte a comunicação utilizador-a-utilizador num cenário heterogéneo englobando o típico ISP e VANETs focadas em dispositivos móveis. O sistema proposto é capaz de mapear um utilizador a um veículo tanto localmente (i.e. não existe ligação à internet), online (i.e. o sistema não está numa rede veicular mas tem acesso direto à internet) e usando um gateway (i.e. o sistema está numa rede veicular onde algum nó tem acesso à internet e irá servir como gateway). VANESS foi integralmente implementado em Android OS, onde os resultados dos testes mostram que é um sistema viável, e parcialmente em iOS mostrando a sua capacidade para multi-plataformas

STRIVE : partilha de informação de trânsito citadino com Smartphone

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaAs redes veiculares têm sofrido diversos avanços nos últimos anos. A comunicação entre veículos é cada vez mais uma realidade no mundo actual e tem sido alvo de investigação e desenvolvimento quer por investigadores, quer pelos principais fabricantes de automóveis, com o objectivo de trazer até aos condutores diversos serviços, usando as redes veiculares como meio de transporte, através do uso dos seus smartphones. Numa primeira avaliação, a principal vantagem da rede veicular assenta na troca de mensagens entre veículos que permita criar um sistema de alertas para os condutores em situações de perigo, tentando reduzir o número de acidentes nas estradas. Ao mesmo tempo, nos últimos anos tem-se assistido a um crescimento constante da capacidade de processamento e de funcionalidades dos equipamentos móveis ao mesmo tempo que se assiste ao aumento das suas vendas. Os dispositivos móveis como smartphones e tablets têm tido uma grande proliferação, e cada vez mais se assiste a um uso das mais variadas aplicações por parte de qualquer utilizador. Desta forma, existe além da questão da segurança uma tentativa de implementar o uso das capacidades das redes veiculares em novas aplicações que tragam até ao utilizador, seja ele condutor ou passageiro, serviços que vão além da segurança, como comunicação e entretenimento. Estes serviços permitirão fazer uso do elevado poder computacional que os smartphones disponibilizam e que não se encontram mais desenvolvidos devido à falta de um sistema completo que inclua uma solução capaz de garantir conectividade total entre os diversos intervenientes, desde os componentes intrínsecos à rede veicular até à camada de aplicação dos smartphones da actualidade. Este trabalho propõe-se a estudar, arquitectar e desenvolver o STRIVE, uma solução que pretende resolver os problemas de comunicação e conectividade entre redes móveis e aplicações de alto nível, incluindo também a possibilidade de obter informação directamente do veículo através de um módulo de ligação ao sistema de diagnóstico. Assim, os cenários possíveis incluem tráfego de dados de vários tipos como recursos web, rede veicular e sensores. Para agregar e processar estes dados foi desenvolvida uma aplicação móvel que fornece funcionalidades ao condutor, como um sistema de alertas de perigos na estrada, alertas de problemas no veículo, relatórios de rotas e consumos ou comunicação textual entre veículos. No âmbito da Dissertação foram criados alguns cenários de testes para análise de desempenho da aplicação e das comunicações em ambiente real e simulado. Estes testes serviram para identificar a viabilidade do STRIVE em dispositivos reais, usando redes de comunicação reais. Deste modo pretende-se também observar os possíveis problemas do sistema. Os resultados obtidos permitiram constatar que o sistema pode ser utilizado por qualquer proprietário de um smartphone Android, que faça uso da rede veicular testada, apenas instalando a aplicação desenvolvida.In recent years, vehicular networks have undergone many advances. Communication between vehicles is increasingly becoming a reality in today’s world and has been the target in R&D either by researchers or by major car manufacturers, with the goal of bringing up various services to the drivers, using the vehicular networks as means of transport, through the use of their smartphones. In a first review, the main advantage of the vehicular network is based on the exchange of messages between vehicles allowing the creation of an alert system for drivers in a dangerous situation, in order to try to reduce the number of road accidents. At the same time, in the last few years, there has been a steady growth in the processing power and functionality of mobile devices and an increase in their sales. Mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, have come here to stay and, increasingly, we are witnessing a more varied use of applications by the users. Thus, there is, beyond the issue of security, an attempt to implement the use of the capabilities of vehicular networks in new applications that bring to the user, be it driver or passenger, services that go beyond security, such as communication and entertainment. These services will make use of the high computational power that smartphones offer, and that are not more developed due to the lack of a complete system that includes a solution capable of full connectivity between the various “actors”, from the intrinsic components, to the vehicular network and to the application layer of the smartphones of today. This work in this Dissertation aims to study, architect and develop a solution that solves the problems of communication and connectivity between vehicular networks and high-level applications, including also the possibility of obtaining information directly from the vehicle via a connection module to the car diagnostic’s system. So, the possible scenarios include traffic data of various types such as: Internet, vehicular network and sensors. To aggregate and process this data, it was developed, as an end product of the system, a mobile application that provides functionality to the driver as a system of alerts for road hazards, warnings concerning problems in the vehicle, route and consumption reports or textual communication between vehicles. Within this Master’s Dissertation, several test scenarios for application and communications performance, in real and simulated environment, were created. These tests served to identify the feasibility of the STRIVE on real devices, using real communication networks. Thus, the aim was also to observe the possible problems of the system. The results obtained allowed us to prove that the system can be used by any owner of an Android smartphone, who makes use of the tested vehicular network, just by installing the developed application

Adelantamientos seguros mediante un sistema de transmisión de vídeo entre vehículos

[EN] Android system that assists drivers to overtaking through a real-time video[ES] Sistema para dispositivos móviles Android, que asiste a los conductores a la hora de realizar adelantamientos a través de un vídeo en tiempo real.Herrero Arnanz, J. (2014). Adelantamientos seguros mediante un sistema de transmisión de vídeo entre vehículos. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/51707Archivo delegad

DriveAssist - A V2X-Based Driver Assistance System for Android

In this paper, we introduce the Android-based driver assistance system DriveAssist. The application allows the visualization of traffic information that originates from Vehicle-to-X (V2X) communication services as well as from central traffic services (CTSs) on the user’s smartphone. Besides giving the driver an overview of the traffic around her/him on a map view, DriveAssist can also run in the background and trigger warning messages for certain traffic incidents. The system design allows for augmenting any vehicle with a sophisticated audio-visual information system for V2X data and information, and thereby complements the vehicle’s on-board driver assistance systems at competitive costs.