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C E NT E R S UCC E S S STOR I E S
(continued)
FAU NETWORKING RESEARCH TO
HELP IMPROVE ROAD SAFETY
Imad Mahgoub, Ph.D., professor of computer science at FAU has
received an NSF MRI Award: Development of Instrumentation to
Support Multi-Technology Vehicular Networking Systems Research
grant of $330,000 with a matching grant of $142,000 from FAU
to develop a vehicular networking testbed and the software tools
needed to quickly develop and deploy protocols and applications
on the testbed as part of the NSF I/UCRC.
Vehicular Networks also known asVANETs is a new technology that
can provide quick, efficient means of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and
vehicle to infrastructure communication such as cell phone towers.
V2V communication enables a vehicle to: sense hazards with a 360
degree awareness of the position of other vehicles and the threat
that their vehicle presents; calculate risk; issue driver advisories
or warnings; or take pre-emptive actions to avoid a crash. The
technology has tremendous potential to improve roadway safety,
traffic flow efficiency and convenience for drivers and passengers
and is part of an envisioned Intelligent Transportation System.
One of the main research challenges to improving this technology
is the lack of accurate evaluation schemes. The current research
relies heavily on simulation. As new vehicular networks are ready
to be released the research team will work to develop a platform
to verify the networks performance in real-life environments and
identify unforeseen
problems. The
information gathered
from this research
will help match the
capabilities of next–
generation vehicles
and enable easier
evaluation of complex
vehicular networking
systems and create
a higher standard in
vehicular networking
research world-wide.
tkLABS, a local
engineering consulting
firm specializing in embedded wireless systems, will be assisting
the FAU research team with tasks requiring expertise in low-level
software development, electrical and mechanical design and
manufacturing.
Imad Mahgoub, Ph.D., PI of the project.