Vehicular communications

There is an increasing demand for mobility across the globe. As a result, most large cities are overcrowded with vehicles and face unpleasant daily outcomes, including traffic congestion, pollution and accidents. Current mobility strategies are inefficient, leading to enormous losses of time, safety compromises, pollution and degradation in the quality of life, as identified by research community of both, public agencies and private industry. Moreover, given the current energy source mix, the above inefficiencies lead to a huge waste of non-renewable fossil energy, indicating the necessity for more efficient and safer mobility.

In response to these challenges, there has been an emergence of innovative, cost-effective cooperative mobility and automated driving solutions improving energy efficiency, individual safety and the effectiveness of public and freight transport. These initiatives together form the cornerstone of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). By enabling vehicles to communicate with each other via Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communication as well as with roadside base stations via Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication, ITS can contribute to safer and more efficient roads.

The Smarties Lab works in the following areas:

(a)       Better information to the traveler: Real-time, accurate and tailored information provision to the driver, especially when it originates from multiple sources and is associated with large amounts of data, is essential.

(b)      Faster Response: Solutions that will assist the driver in effectively handling sudden or unforeseen situations (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems – ADAS).

(c)       Reducing the cost of deployment: Centralized cost, as necessitated by infrastructure based systems, is difficult to justify when the benefit is distributed.

(d)      Better Reliability: Reliability of communication infrastructure and resilience to interference.

(e)       Better Co-operation and Integration: In-vehicle intelligence, connectivity with other vehicles and co-ordination among heterogeneous technologies.