On the 26 of March 2008, the University of Newcastle (UNEW) hosted a workshop offering delegates an opportunity to see the
potential future of intelligent transportation systems. With the
increasing availability of low-cost advanced systems, the focus of the
workshop was on the interoperation of these systems to provide ever
more sophisticated information and support systems for the drivers,
passengers and pedestrians of the future.
Naturally any roll out of pervasive computing environments needs
careful consideration of the supporting engineering fundamentals. The
workshop therefore opened with an introduction to some of the most
recent and exciting research into managing the complexity and
intricate nature of these kinds of distributed wireless networks.
One approach to managing the complexity of a large dynamic network
is to use middleware to handle the inter-system communication. The
Embedded Middleware in Mobility Applications (EMMA) project is a€5million project funded under the EU 6th Framework Programme
(IST Priority) which looks to do just this. EMMA will provide the specification for a middleware |
system that sits between the data
consumers and producers in any given automotive or transportation
system. The strength of this approach is that it allows developers to
focus on their own domain of expertise, either in making use of this
data by developing increasingly intelligent applications, or by
developing more sophisticated, cheaper or smaller sensors to provide
the data needed to support the driver assistance or traffic management
system of the future. The key benefit to using the EMMA system is that
it is designed to be operable on a variety of different platforms, from an
automotive system with a ready supply of power designed to
withstand challenging temperature extremes and vibration profiles, to
static roadside installations designed to be weather-proof and selfsufficient
for many months or years.
The EMMA project demonstrates this by deploying example applications
on three different types of systems. One using roadside beacons
to alter traffic light priority if the presence of an emergency vehicle is
detected, another uses the EMMA system to integrate common sensors
within a car to facilitate the transmission of traffic density to a traffic management |
