Illinois vehicular project, live data sampling and opportunistic internet connectivity

Abstract

Embedded sensors in mobile devices such as cars and smart phones present new opportunities to collect data and explore a new environment. Vehicular Networks are highly mobile and widely spread, and the broad deployment of embedded sensors will lead to the establishment of large participatory sensing systems and enable the generation of large amounts of data. A major challenge is efficiently collecting, storing and sharing all this data. Vehicular networks present several bottlenecks that must be considered. Data could be kept locally using the network as a distributed storage system. However, the high mobility and frequent disconnection could cause a continuos migration of data, and possibly its loss. Replication is a possible solution to this problem, using ad-hoc connections between vehicles. Additionally, capacity is also a challenge. Using a mobile connection such as 3G or WiMax, the information can be uploaded and retrieved from a central storage unit. However, those networks are already pushed to the limit to serve existing mobile Internet access. The increasing number of devices generating data and the rates at which this data is generated will quickly overwhelm the infrastructure. On the other hand, energy efficiency might not be a primary concern for vehicles, given that when a vehicle is on, it generates enough energy for full-power radio operation. Nevertheless, a vehicle can be parked for several days, and thus the power for communication would drain the battery. Thus, even in vehicular networks, energy efficient protocols can and sometimes must be used. Efforts to tackle these challenges led to the design of systems such as Locus [4]. However, it is still not fully understood how will these heavy sensing tasks, the peer to peer communication, and the energy efficiency interact. To anServer