Clemson students to present winning 'connected vehicle' plan at conference

Published: September 21, 2011

Integrated Intelligence Transportation Platform image by: Christine Prado

CLEMSON — A Clemson University vision of how American cars and roads might interact in the future has been named a public favorite in a competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

Clemson students and faculty entered their "connected vehicle" plan — a detailed look at automotive and wireless technology — earlier this year in the DOT competition, which was held to generate ideas for the next generation of cars and highways.

"The technology is already there. What's necessary is the will and the resources to put it all together," said automotive engineering professor Joachim Taiber. "That is what our entry in the Connected Vehicle Challenge proposes."

The public was invited to rate 76 proposals submitted by universities, corporations and think tanks across the country. Clemson emerged as one of the winners in that voting.

As a result, a member of the Clemson team will deliver a presentation on the winning submission at the 2011 World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, which is Oct. 16-20 in Orlando, Fla.

The Clemson proposal focused on how cars can use dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) technology — wireless channels designed specifically for automotive use — to share information with highway databases, emergency personnel, global positioning satellites and a host of businesses from gas stations to restaurants.

The technology can be used for things like toll booths, where it allows cars to pay tolls electronically without the driver having to stop, roll down the window and toss coins into a basket or hand bills to an attendant.

The Clemson team involved students from a variety of academic disciplines: automotive, computer and civil engineering; as well as the business school. Taiber led the team with faculty colleagues Richard Brooks and K.C. Wang, associate professors of electrical and computer engineering; Jim Martin, associate professor in the School of Computing; and civil engineering associate professor Ronnie Chowdhury.

"The electrical engineering students brought in the network expertise, the computing school students knew how to develop the software platform, the civil engineers analyzed the integration into traffic-management and road system-infrastructure," said Taiber, a research professor based at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville. "We also involved an MBA student to support the business model development."

Of the more than six dozen competition entries, most described specific technical applications. The Clemson team took it one step further. In addition to describing the use of the technology, the members sought a way to pay for it using opportunities to incorporate mobile commerce to help fund the network.

An on-board computer could gauge the vehicle's energy supply and calculate exactly when and where it will need to be fueled up. The system could identify places to eat along trip routes or stream movies into the backseat video system for the kids, all paid for electronically.

"DSRC technology has been known for years, but it hasn't been adopted because of the cost. No one was willing to invest in the infrastructure," Taiber said. "In the DOT challenge, we felt we needed not only to address the technology, but how to implement the technology in a feasible business model.

"To employ DSRC technology on a wide scale, you need radios and transmitters in the cars, in the highways and in the emergency response agencies. That would cost billions of dollars," he said. "What we are suggesting is a proposal for advanced safety features without the need for more taxes to fund it."

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