Symbiotic highway sensor network
M.I. Brownfield, N.J. Davis · 2006
Progression in consumer markets and transportation- related industry demands the capability for highway gateway Internet access to support a wide variety of applications. Forming a symbiotic relationship, both the transportation departments and the Department of Homeland Security would benefit by providing this gateway access to highway motorists in exchange for collecting and delivering roadside sensor data for distribution throughout the Internet. This paper introduces the symbiotic highway network which integrates sensor fields, mobile inter-vehicle ad hoc networks, and the Internet. The supporting experiments employ the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) Smart Road to analyze IEEE 802.11b/g/g+ throughput capabilities between mobile stations and roadside access points. An additional test verifies the capability of static and mobile IEEE 802.15.4 sensor platforms to communicate at city and highway speeds. All of the IEEE 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.15.4 technologies maintain significant available throughput over a wide range of typical highway driving speeds using 2.4 GHz radio transceivers.