ON BOARD COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM FOR SERVICES
DEPLOYMENT IN VEHICLES
Bottom-up Approach for Intelligent Transport Systems Deployment
Unai Hernández-Jayo, Ignacio Angulo, Asier Perallos and Nekane Sainz
University of Deusto, Avda. Universidades 24, 48007 Bilbao, Spain
Keywords: Vehicle Embedded Systems, VANET, OBD, V2V/V2I Communications, Intelligent Transport Systems.
Abstract: This paper reflects the advances and results of two research projects supported by the Basque Government.
The objective of this work is to build a device which allows the driver to communicate with his vehicle,
with other vehicles and the infrastructure on the road. This Intelligent On Board Unit will be able to learnt
from driver behavior and the environment. Based on this knowledge, the OBU could advise the driver on
actions to take while driving. The modules implemented and the test scenario that has been built to validate
the proposed architecture, are shown in this article.
1 INTRODUCTION
The new information technologies and
communications applied to intelligent transportation
systems can improve transportation efficiency in
areas such as safety, pollution or infotainment. To
give the vehicle the ability to communicate with
other vehicles (V2V) or infrastructure (V2I) enables
the deployment of many services designed to
improve the quality of passenger transport, safety or
reducing contaminant emissions (Chisalita, 2006)
In this paper, the work of the Intelligent
Transport research group from the University of
Deusto in the area of vehicle embedded systems is
shown. First, projects focus on this area of
application are enounced, making special mention
on projects recently approved by the European
Union. In section 3, the proposed platform is
described, and in section 4, each block of this
platform is explained. Finally, the future work and
conclusions are presented.
2 RELATED WORK
Except some initiatives emerging for certain
manufacturers, such as The Genivi Alliance
(Macario, 2009), there is not an on-board platform
with an open architecture. There is not any system
able to provide access to information from inside the
vehicle, from external infrastructure or even from
other vehicles and also support the implementation
of services, consumers of such information relating
to any of the areas of intelligent transport.
There are various initiatives and European
research projects in this area. The most significant
are summarise below:
CVIS (Cooperative Vehicle Infrastructure
Systems): Coordinated by ERTICO, this project
focuses on providing cars with a technology solution
capable to communicate securely with other vehicles
(V2V) and with the nearby roadside infrastructure
(V2I) (Toulminet, 2008). The project is focused
primarily on core cooperative technology.
COOPERS (Cooperative systems for Intelligent
Road Safety): This project, coordinated by Austria
Tech, proposes to connect the vehicles through
continuous wireless communication with the road
infrastructure to provide services that improve
driving safety (Toulminet, 2008).
m:Via-Future of the Intelligent Transportation
Systems: Led by Telefónica I+D, this project
focuses on the use of networks and mobile or
wireless technologies to increase road safety and add
value as infotainment, vehicle support, comfort and
traffic optimization.
Main difference between the solution proposed
in this paper and those mentioned above are mainly
based on bottom-up approach adopted in this
project. Instead of doing the analysis of
205
Hernández-Jayo U., Angulo I., Perallos A. and Sainz N. (2010).
ON BOARD COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM FOR SERVICES DEPLOYMENT IN VEHICLES - Bottom-up Approach for Intelligent Transport Systems
Deployment.
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Wireless Information Networks and Systems, pages 205-208
DOI: 10.5220/0002948802050208
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

requirements from the services to be developed, this
project focuses on developing a general platform,
capable of obtaining information from inside and
outside the vehicle, over an open and scalable
architecture on which to deploy all services related
to intelligent transportation.
3 PLATFORM PROPOSAL TO
PROVIDE INTELLIGENT
TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
The challenge is to provide connectivity, intelligence
and real time information to mobile elements
(vehicles) in a lacking of connectivity environment.
Moreover, in this scenario many elements play as
sources and destinies of information: other vehicles,
road infrastructure, driver and passengers, traffic
management centers, and so on. Therefore, a system
like this should include on board elements and those
systems placed on the roadside. Related to the on
board system:
 The system will be able to collect data from the
vehicle data buses. Interaction with and
integration other on board devices and gadgets is
a desired capability too. Likely, more and more
gadgets will be launched in the following years.
This system works as a concentrator of current
on board devices and gadgets and some others
that could arise in the
 On board system has to provide a human
machine interface (HMI) compatible with the
driving. It enables the provision of information
by users to the system as well as the
consumption of the services by them.
 Communications with externals elements
(Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network - VANETS) are
needed in order to broadcast internal data and to
access to external services. It might support a
wide range of wireless communications
technologies to fulfil the interaction requirements
with all the external elements.
These specifications might be supported by a
hardware device which hosts the in-vehicle
embedded system. Furthermore, it should be based
on an open software platform to allow adding new
services. This makes the system scalable and
flexible for future developments. The functional
components of the OBU’s architecture are shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Functional components of the On-Board Unit
architecture.
Once the proposed architecture is deployed in a real
scenario, there is a wide range of services that could
be provided. For example: remote monitoring
services based on data acquired from the vehicle
(consumptions, temperature, and so on), fleet
management services, driving assistance services
(i.e, recommended routes or alerts warnings), traffic
management services, assistance services used by
the entities which manage the road infrastructures
and traffic (councils, for example) or passenger
information services (infotainment, tourism and
advertisement). Some of these services will be
accessed through web portals or fat clients at home
or in the management centers. Other applications
will be accessed from car.
In the test scenario designed to check the
proposed ITS platform, a particular service for
traffic alerts broadcasting has been considered. In
this service drivers can report real time information
about the road state and special events, as well as
their position, while they are driving. This
information is available in a traffic portal. This site
informs about the state of the traffic in a selected
geographical region.
4 CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
To check the platform described in the previous
section, specific modules have been developed.
4.1 Developed Modules
A prototype of On board Unit (OBU) has been
developed (Figure 2). Thanks to this prototype, the
user will be able to receive data: a) from the vehicle;
b) from the gadgets inside the vehicle (PDAs,
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cellular, sensor networks, etc.); c) elements placed
out of the vehicle; d) from the user, thanks to a
Human Machine Interface.
Figure 2: On Board Unit description.
4.1.1 Communications with the Vehicle
One of the goals of this project is that any user can
use the platform that here is presented. As well, the
control center or the user can obtain data from the
vehicle either in real time or those data can be saved
in a file. To satisfy both requirements, we are
working with the standard OBD-II. Thanks to this
standard, data are running in the bus can be sniffed
and the user can access to this information. To
communicate the OBU with the data bus in the
vehicle, a Bluetooth interface has been used. Using
this interface, the user can collect data related with
the vehicle: speed, revolutions, fuel level (load), and
engine temperature and so on. This information can
be shown in a graphical interface (Figure 3) or be
saved to analysis later.
Figure 3: OBD graphical interface.
Using this information from the mechanic and
electronic of the vehicle, software applications can
be developed. For now, one service focus on eco-
driving has been developed. Knowing the engine
torque and reading the speed and rpm, this service
recommends the user the best speed gear ratio. Thus,
the fuel consumption and CO
2
emissions can be
reduced.
4.1.2 External Communication
Using the wireless communications systems that
OBU implements, the vehicle can interchange
information with elements placed on the road. These
elements and the vehicles create a Vehicular Ad-hoc
Network (Ducourthial, 2009).
The objective of the external communications
module is that the user be reported with real time
information about the road state and special events.
This information has to be shown inside the vehicle,
so OBU has to implement an interface to read and
display these data. For example, special vehicles as
ambulances, police or firefighters can generate alerts
to inform about their situation and route. Then, the
OBU can recommend actions to the user in an active
way.
4.1.3 Internal Communications
As it is described in the previous section, the user
can generate information from his vehicle and send
it to the VANET. To give out his information, he has
instruments to transmit events inside the vehicle.
Sensor networks can be deployed inside the
vehicle. These can be used to monitor the driver's
physical parameters (heart rate, temperature, etc)
(Nakanishi, 2007). The data from these networks
could be collected by the OBU for a later analysis.
Users’ gadgets as PDA or cellular can be used as an
interface to generate information or to receive data
from the vehicle or the external devices. Thanks to
these devices, the user can export data to his laptop
at home and register all the information generated in
a journey.
4.1.4 Human Machine Interface
The main requirement is that the HMI interface is
interactive and non-intrusive, that is, it should be
used by the driver while driving.
Currently, the developed OBU implements a
touch screen that restricts their use when the car is
moving, but we work to incorporate a voice system
to it.
4.2 Test Scenario
To validate both the OBU and the elements
developed to be outside the vehicle, a test scenario is
designed in which the operation of these elements
has been validated and verified.
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Approach for Intelligent Transport Systems Deployment
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4.2.1 Traffic Site
For this scenario, a traffic site has been created. On
it, the information of each vehicle connected to the
system is showing. Of each vehicle can get the
position, the route and the type of vehicle, a unique
identity and its speed. We distinguish different types
of vehicle: common vehicle, ambulance, emergency
ambulance, emergency vehicle (fire, police).
In addition, each of these vehicles can report
incidents such as traffic jams, accidents or heavy
rains. These events are reflected in the traffic portal
with its position, time and date.
4.2.2 OBD Data Collection
To access the data running through the vehicle
communication bus, Bluetooth interface is
connected to the connector OBDII in the vehicle.
Then, the information is sent to the device that has
played the role of the OBU.
Then, these data are analyzed and either they are
displayed using a graphical user interface or they are
stored. These stored data can be analyzed or sent to
the traffic site which can keep track of these
parameters.
4.2.3 VANET Simulation
Moreover, using the NS2 network simulator, the
performance of communications between a moving
vehicle and the RSU has been simulated.
In this simulation, a vehicle sends periodically an
alarm message to the RSU. The vehicle could be for
example an ambulance, and it is moving through
different areas under different RSU’s coverage. The
objective of the simulation is to measure how
successful any RSU within the area receives the
messages in order to guarantee the alarm message
reception.
5 FUTURE WORK
Currently we are working to increase the amount of
data read from OBD. With these data will improve
the eco-driving service and provide other services
like remote diagnostics and monitoring vehicle
maintenance. As well, we are analyzing how we can
use the communication bus in the vehicle to obtain
specific information of electrical vehicles. With this
information we will provide services geared
exclusively to electric cars.
The HMI module is the less developed, so we are
working to improve the interactivity in a non-
intrusive way using voice recognition systems.
6 CONCLUSIONS
All of the projects presented in the state-of-art of this
article, are based on top-down approach. That is: the
ITS architecture is designed from the point of view
of the services. Once the services are designed, the
hardware platform is developed. The problem of
these approaches is that they are no easily scalable,
because new services may require new hardware.
Most of the times, change the hardware design is
difficult and expensive.
However, the on board platform presented here,
is designed following a bottom-up approach. First,
the hardware is designed to support different type of
services. This hardware meets the characteristics
necessary to support new and future type of services.
The goal of this initiative is to deploy an on
board platform with several communications
interfaces and develop services to validate it. Some
of those services are shown in this article (event
generation, eco-driving, and so on).
Add new capabilities to the platform, create new
services based on new V2V and V2I concepts, and
finally, check the whole system (platform and
services) in a real scenario are the objectives of the
following steps.
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