Vehicular ad-hoc network (NOW - NETWORK ON WHEELS)

image copyright to autoblog.com

As in my previous post I have already discussed what is VAN (Vehicular ad-hoc network). Research for VAN has been already started in the year 2005. As a result we see various applications on board in our dash board like GPS system or navigators etc. 

But the boundaries of VAN are not just upto developing a GPS system or a navigator system. Engineers are keen to develop more complicated systems where vehicles can communicate with each other as we human do. If we could develop this system then it will create a revolutionary break through in the field of driving.  By exchange of position and sensor data over(potentially multiple) wireless links, car drivers can be warned of emergency situations ahead of time.Similarly, cars can directly share route information, thereby reducing road traffic congestion and transmittinginfotainment data. The communication technologyallows novel peer-to-peer applications, makesservice fees and data transmission costs obsolete, andboosts car telematics to a new level.

To be more precise engineers has develop various projects to meet the objectives and achievement in the field of VAN.

NOW ( Network on wheels) is a project carried out by major car manufactures,universities and supported by German Government.

The NOW project is being develop with the objective that vehicles can communicate with each other. So for communication apart from having physical hardware system like wireless receivers and transmitters and sensors we also require some universal software or more precisely we call it as protocol. This protocol is required because to create a network communication the vehicles of different manufactures should agree upon a set of rules before the network could be established. Moreover a protocol software is required so that different vehicle could understand different data format of oncoming vehicle flawlessly without any problem. 

                                                   ARCHITECTURE OF "NOW PROTOCOL"

image copyright to darts.cse.nd.edu

     

Here safety applications and non safety applications comes under application layer.

WSMP , UDP , TCP protocols comes under transport layer.

IP and LLC comes under the network layer.

The approach was enabled by proliferation of two main technologies: Wireless
LAN IEEE 802.11 and positioning devices based on
GPS.

So here was the brief introduction about the protocol to be used in near future.
We shall hope to see the time when our cars will be able to express itz feeling and emotions too apart from sharing ad-hoc data.

Happy driving !!!