Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network for Transportation System Applications

The important innovations in wireless and digital electronics will support many applications in the areas of safety, environmental and emissions control, driving assistance, diagnostics, and maintenance in the transport domain. The last few years have seen the emergence of many new technologies that can potentially have major impacts on transportation systems. One of these technologies is Wireless Sensor Networks. A wireless sensor device is typically composed of a processing unit, memory, and a radio chip which allows it to communicate wirelessly with other devices within range. The Embedded Middleware in Mobility Applications (EMMA) project delivers a middleware that aims to facilitate the interaction between sensing technologies in transportation systems. This paper outlines our experience in the EMMA project and provides an illustration of the important role that wireless sensor technology can play in future transportation system. The paper discusses our experience of using heterogeneous sensors to develop transportation system applications in the EMMA project and focuses on how cooperation between vehicle and infrastructure can be addressed. It also presents encouraging results obtained from the experiments in investigating the feasibility of utilising wireless sensor in vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication in real transportation applications.