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

CLEMSON, September 21, 2011 – A Clemson University vision of howAmerican cars and roads might interact in the future has been named apublic favorite in a competition sponsored by the U.S. Department ofTransportation (DOT).

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

Thepublic was invited to rate 76 proposals submitted by universities,corporations and think tanks across the country. Clemson emerged as oneof 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.

TheClemson proposal focused on how cars can use dedicated short-rangecommunications (DSRC) technology — wireless channels designedspecifically for automotive use — to share information with highwaydatabases, emergency personnel, global positioning satellites and a hostof businesses from gas stations to restaurants.

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

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

The electricalengineering students brought in the network expertise, the computingschool students knew how to develop the software platform, the civilengineers analyzed the integration into traffic-management and roadsystem-infrastructure, said Taiber, a research professor based at theClemson University International Center for Automotive Research(CU-ICAR) in Greenville. We also involved an MBA student to support thebusiness model development.

Of the more than six dozencompetition entries, most described specific technical applications. TheClemson team took it one step further. In addition to describing theuse of the technology, the members sought a way to pay for it usingopportunities to incorporate mobile commerce to help fund the network.

Anon-board computer could gauge the vehicle’s energy supply and calculateexactly when and where it will need to be fueled up. The system couldidentify places to eat along trip routes or stream movies into thebackseat video system for the kids, all paid for electronically.

DSRCtechnology has been known for years, but it hasn’t been adopted becauseof the cost. No one was willing to invest in the infrastructure,Taiber said. In the DOT challenge, we felt we needed not only toaddress the technology, but how to implement the technology in afeasible business model.

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