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ASTRA

Applications of Smartdust in Transport

Principal Investigator: Alan Tully

In the field of electronic communications there is a new and evolving range of networking and communications technologies that have the potential to revolutionise the passage of information between moving vehicles, infrastructure and users and managers of the transport system. Of particular interest to this study is the development of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETS) which offer a low-cost solution to the need for having available large numbers of intelligent communicating nodes and sensors (MOTES).

This technology is at a relatively early stage of development but crucially offers the potential for miniaturisation (i.e. Smartdust) using nano-technology techniques thus broadening the current scope of possible applications in transport. The aim of ASTRA is to identify the possible development pathways of Smartdust technologies over the next 30 years and the potential application areas of these technologies in transport. This will be achieved by a combination of informed forward-thinking and an on-road proof of concept trial using vehicles and roadside infrastructure equipped with Smartdust technology.

Potential applications of this technology to be explored in the project include automatic vehicle locationing, real-time passenger information, road safety, congestion monitoring and management and pollution monitoring.

Additional projects will investigate the protocols required for MANETS.

The measurable objectives of the project are five-fold:

1 to present a state-of-the-art review of Smartdust communications technologies;
2 to undertake a detailed investigation of likely development pathways and capabilities of these technologies over the next 30 years;
3 to conduct an on-road proof of concept trial using vehicles and roadside infrastructure equipped with Smartdust technology to demonstrate the concept of vehicle monitoring in a real-world environment;
4 to identify and develop ideas on the range of potential applications of Smartdust technology in the transport domain over the next 30 years; and
5 to investigate implementation strategies of Smartdust transport applications over the 30 period considering exploitation opportunities, identification and analysis of potential markets, standardisation and institutional issues and links to other emerging communications technologies.