Better reception?
Finally a reason to *want* the white van to sit 5cm off your bumper.
White Van Man could become a rolling radio relay
The idea that cars should share data among each other to automate some aspects of driving and make more efficient use of roads is not new. But researchers from the Universidade do Porto and Carnegie Mellon University have noted an important impediment to its adoption: cars are smaller than other vehicles – like lorries and …
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Monday 10th December 2012 09:43 GMT Some Beggar
Re: Shouldn't this be automatic?
The experiments are looking at the best algorithms to route around the network. Road traffic is not particularly mesh-like - it typically runs in lines rather than being spread randomly in space, and members of the network might physically block other connections - so conventional algorithms for routing are unlikely to be the most efficient.
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Monday 10th December 2012 05:04 GMT Crazy Operations Guy
Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?
Why not just put relays on lampposts? It would be much easier than convincing companies to start putting antennas and equipment on their roofs just to benefit others. And I would trust the road crews a little more than some random 18-wheeler to keep the relays working properly.
Lampposts are the highest objects on the road, and thus a very large area of reception; they already have electricity going to them; and you could still reap the benefits of having such a network when only one car is on the road.
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Monday 10th December 2012 07:23 GMT Richard 12
Re: Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?
Indeed.
Although there are many roads with no lamp posts.
I'm also rather confused about what this could be for - the roads that are congested enough for this to work are within range of mobile phone towers, and the ones that aren't in range of mobile phone towers aren't busy enough for it to work.
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Monday 10th December 2012 11:44 GMT Conor Turton
Re: Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?
Exactly. I have a VHF repeater on a tower on a very high hill. I can talk through that repeater from 30 miles away with a 5 watt handheld radio using the stock rubber duck antenna. That repeater which itself is using only 5 watts can be heard from nearly 60 miles away.
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Monday 10th December 2012 13:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?
Costs, lack of lampposts and maintenance.
Every lamppost would need one or lampposts would have to be installed and have power run to them. This network would have to be maintained and serviced.
By installing them on the vehicles you automatically have them where they are needed. They are powered by the vehicle and they can be maintained as part of the annual service of the vehicle.
More importantly (for the politician), it is the motorist who would pay for it as part of the vehicle cost and maintenance.
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Monday 10th December 2012 23:45 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?
"Costs, lack of lampposts and maintenance."
Close, but no cigar. The reason for building relays into vehicle instead of by the roadside is related to cost, but not in the way you think.
Putting relays on lamposts or other "street furniture" means it's a Govt infrastructure project which has to paid for out of the Govt Budget, ie our taxes. Placing the relays into vehicles as part of the "build", probably mandated by Govt. means the driver or company has paid for it..
In the long run, "we" pay for it anyway, no matter how it's done, but by placing the relays in the vehicles, Govt can point at a "clean" balance sheet and tell the voters that it was "free".
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Monday 10th December 2012 14:15 GMT Some Beggar
Re: Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?
They're looking at an ad hoc mesh network that passes information related to traffic by making use of the vehicles that form that traffic.
You appear to be looking for a solution to a completely different problem. In fact, I'm not even sure what problem it is that your solution is supposed to be addressing.
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 12:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?
Good to see that the boffins spotted that high vehicles got in the way - I wonder how much that nugget of rocket science cost?
But in the unlikely scenario that the costs of this are less than the benefits, surely the obvious solution is surely to go under, not over, and bounce the radio signal off the road, using low mounted antennae?
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Monday 10th December 2012 07:34 GMT Ole Juul
Article doesn't say what for
The idea that cars should share data among each other to automate some aspects of driving and make more efficient use of roads is not new.
Radio controlled roads are common here. There are signs posting the relevant frequency, and you need to keep your ear to the radio so as to avoid being run over by a loaded tandem logging truck barrelling down a one lane road with no ability to stop for you. The signs constitute legal warning to that effect. That one is a no-brainer, but what does one need to know from another vehicle in the city?
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Monday 10th December 2012 07:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Article doesn't say what for
Its for the future developing 6GHz ITS = intelligent transport system which will (eventually) be mandated for many things:
road pricing: - "Route A will be £3 now or £1.50 in 1 hours time", "optional Route B will be 75 pence but will take you 1 hour longer" (with hard realtime traffic data)
safety: "a car thirty vehicles ahead of you has just braked and swerved to the right to avoid something in the road", your car would get this data rippled back thru the stack and be ready to avoid the hole/moose/cat
infotainment: the backhaul at 60GHz iirc would enable SIRI style internet/sms/email in the car and probably enough bandwidth to entertain the kids with cartoon channel in the back seat.
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Monday 10th December 2012 08:12 GMT Fred Flintstone
I presume..
.. similar challenges exist to what used to be MANET (Mobile Ad hoc NETwork): the mobile node nearest to the mesh exit point gets hit by all the traffic. At least they won't have the battery issue that the portable version of this suffered (exit nodes gets drained first if the majority of the traffic is outside the mesh).
On the plus side, it means they don't need to start from scratch, quite a lot of the thinking has already been done.
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Monday 10th December 2012 11:42 GMT Conor Turton
Nothing to see here...
So they've discovered what amateur radio users and broadcasters have known for nearly a century? Why the hell did they think that repeaters and TV transmitters are put up on the highest hills in an area?
And how much money did they spend investigating something they could've got the answer for by walking into their local amateur radio club and asking even a newly qualified amateur?
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
