José Santa

Architecture and evaluation of a unified V2V and V2I communication system based on cellular networks

Vehicle communications are becoming the cornerstone in the future vehicle equipment. More specifically, vehicle to vehicle communications (V2V) are the main object of researching nowadays, because vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) approximations are already being developed as commercial solutions. Cellular networks (CN) are usually applied in V2I solutions, whereas ad hoc networks are practically the only technology considered in V2V communications. Due to fact that CN are currently a reality and the operators are continuously improving the network, this communication technology could be considered as a candidate to deal with V2V necessities as well. The present paper defends the applicability of CN in the V2V field, and presents a novel communication paradigm for vehicles which unifies both V2V and V2I paradigms into one system. A peer to peer network technology has been used over the CN basis to create a group-based communication infrastructure which enables the message propagation among vehicles and between the car and the road side infrastructure. The architecture has been implemented in both hardware and software terms, and multitude of field tests have been carried out, whose main performance results are shown in the paper.

Sharing Context-Aware Road and Safety Information

We present an integrated vehicular system for the collection, management, and provision of context-aware information on traffic and driver location. This system uses an integrated vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication paradigm enriched with an information management system. The infrastructure manages vehicle-detected safety hazards and other relevant information, adapting them to the vehicles context and drivers preferences. This vehicular integrated system resembles the concept of a smart road.

An indoor localization system based on artificial neural networks and particle filters applied to intelligent buildings

Smart Buildings aim to provide users with seamless, invisible and proactive services adapted to their preferences and needs. These services can be offered intelligently by means of considering the static and dynamical status of the building and the location of its occupants. Furthermore, gathering data about the identity and location of users enables to provide more personalized services, while wasted energy in overuse is reduced. But to cope with these objectives, it is necessary to acquire contextual information, both from users and the environment, using nonintrusive, ubiquitous and cheap technologies. In this work, we propose a low-cost and nonintrusive solution to solve the indoor localization problem focused on satisfying the requirements, in terms of accuracy in localization data, to provide customized comfort services in buildings, such as climate and lighting control, or security, with the goal of ensuring users comfort while saving energy. The proposed localization system is based on RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) and IR (Infra-Red) data. The solution implements a Radial Basis Function Network to estimate the location of occupants, and a Particle Filter to track their next positions. This mechanism has been tested in a reference building where an automation system for collecting data and controlling devices has been setup. Results obtained from experimental assessments reveal that, despite our localization system uses a relative low number of sensors, estimated positions are really accurate considering the requirements of precision to provide user-oriented pervasive services in buildings.

A Pharmaceutical Intelligent Information System to detect allergies and Adverse Drugs Reactions based on internet of things

The incidence of serious and fatal Adverse Drugs Reaction (ADR) and harmful effects of pharmaceutical excipients in worldwide hospitals is extremely high. Some studies show a rate of ADR appearance about 6.5% in worldwide hospitals. The consequences of these cases lead to a rate of 80% of ADR incidences that require the patient admission, a medium bed stay of eight days, a cost of

On the Design of Efficient Vehicular Applications

847m and an overall death rate of 0.15%. Most of these consequences can be avoided. For this reason, a drugs checker based on Internet of things and a knowledge-based system is proposed in this paper to detect ADRs and allergy interactions. Specifically, the patients terminal identifies the drugs by means of either NFC (Near Field Communication) or barcode, using common devices such as cellular phones, PDAs or PCs. This information is matched with the Pharmaceutical Intelligent Information System to detect whether a drug or product is compatible with its allergy profile and Electronic Health Record (EHR) or not. The system is being tested with a first approximation based on smart phones and a real patient which suffer a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) intolerance. This patient cannot tolerate some Active Ingredients (AI) such as ibuprofen. Therefore, when the patient checks a drug that contains one of the not tolerated AI, the system warns the patient about the incompatibility with his allergy profile and EHR, by means of a friendly interface.

Monitoring the Position Integrity in Road Transport Localization Based Services

Vehicular communications attract the attention of many people in the networking research world. These networks present some special features, such as high mobility or specific topologies, which affect the performance of applications. In order to select the appropriate technologies, more effort should be directed to identify the final necessities of the network. Few works identify possible applications of vehicular networks, but none of them link application requirements which networking technologies available in the vehicular field. In this paper, we fill this gap, and propose an analysis of application requirements and study how to deal with them using communication technologies for the physical and network level. This study contains key factors which must be taken into account, especially, at the designing stage of the vehicular network.

Assessment of VANET multi-hop routing over an experimental platform

Nowadays, a new generation of civil location based services (LBS) included in the intelligent road transport systems (ITS-R) field is emerging. The reliability of positioning sensors and the communication infrastructure will be the key to the success of such services. A recommended basic onboard equipment (OBE) can include a GNSS based sensor, an embedded computer, a communication equipment and some other aiding sensors. The current GPS based sensors, operating in standard positioning service (SPS) or differential GPS (DGPS) modes, supply the level of accuracy required by many services of interest. However, the solution availability and the integrity monitoring are the main problems for GNSS based road applications, where the cost plays a significant role. In this paper, an embedded software for monitoring the availability and integrity of a GNSS positioning system is presented. The software developed allows the study of the HPLSBAS (Horizontal Protection Level) parameter as a reliable integrity indicator of the positioning system performance. Its suitability for road applications, and the importance of the geostationary satellite visibility and the GPRS/UMTS coverage are analyzed in this paper. Finally, selected results of these investigations and their conclusions are commented.

Experimental evaluation of a novel vehicular communication paradigm based on cellular networks

Experimental evaluation of Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) is still a remaining issue for most researchers. Some works carry out performance tests to evaluate the communication channel according to physical and MAC conditions. Only a few works deal with multi-hop experimentation, but practically none use routing protocols. In this paper an integral VANET testbed is evaluated, using 802.11b and a multi-hop network managed by the Optimised Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol. Up to four vehicles are used to study the VANET performance over different traffic environments and different metrics are considered to analyse the results, including a deeper analysis to track the routes followed by packets end to end. Results differ from traditional one-hop and static-route tests, presenting a more realistic study.

A Multiplatform OSGi Based Architecture for Developing Road Vehicle Services

In the field of vehicular networks, the amount of telematic services which are usually taken into account is very limited. Safety services, and specifically collision avoidance applications, practically receive an exclusive attention. Due to vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) are the most used communication technology, services conceived for the vehicle domain are frequently designed to take advantage of its benefits, but also to suffer its limitations. The intention of this paper is proposing a novel communication paradigm open to the development of any vehicular service with connectivity requirements. This way, not only vehicle to vehicle (V2V) necessities are considered, but also vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) connections are taken into account with the same importance. The work presented here chooses the cellular networks as a valid alternative to VANET approaches in most of the cases, with the added value of V2I capabilities. A design based on peer to peer (P2P) networks has been implemented and tested over a real environment. The hardware/software prototype is explained and main performance measurements prove our system is a feasible communication paradigm for most of vehicular services.

A Framework for Supporting Network Continuity in Vehicular IPv6 Communications

Nowadays, the growing demand on the implantation of onboard services for road vehicles encourages its development as a part of the current and future vehicles. In this sense, the implementation of new facilities cannot lead to an increase of hardware devices in the driver compartment, because space limitations and the need of an easy non-distracting interface with the user must be considered. For these reasons, it is advisable to have a service architecture suitable for further developments, considering the requirements of extensibility. New services should be created using modules shareable with the rest of applications in the vehicle. For this purpose, this work shows an extensible architecture useful in the software development of road services for vehicles. The solution presented is based on the division of services in different levels of abstraction, according to the underlying hardware. This structure is placed over a general purpose computer. A wide range of sensors has been installed in our test vehicle, allowing the implementation of several context aware services, and proving the feasibility of the proposed solution. A set of examples of location based services (LBS), multimedia services, and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) has been developed as described in this paper. Index Terms—Embedded Platforms, Service Composition, OS- Gi, Location-based Services.