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Editorial for the Special Issue: Deploying vehicle-2-x communication
Computer Networks 55 (2011) 3101–3102
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Computer Networks journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comnet
Editorial
Editorial for the Special Issue: Deploying vehicle-2-x communication After many years of research in communication to and between vehicles, it seems that not much progress has been made in the actual deployment of vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication in the real world. The topic seems to be a very attractive field for scientific experimentation in regard to both applications that can be conceived and mechanisms that can be applied. But whereas many a paper was written on the subject, little of the technology can be actually seen on the road. When analyzing what is holding it back the obvious stakeholders come to mind: car manufactures, communication infrastructure providers, and last, but not least, the drivers as customers. Car manufacturers are a conservative bunch – and a tight-fisted one, too. Before adding a new piece of technology to their product, they have to be convinced that it improves their product and will find customer demand. It should not pose any life-cycle risks, i.e., it should neither become obsolete nor need to be modified while the vehicle is in the field. Ideally, it should work in any market in which the vehicle is sold with little need for regional adjustment. With vehicle communication, as with any other ‘‘networked’’ product, the attractiveness of the feature depends on the number of participants in the service. Early adopters might suffer twice: not only would they face higher costs for first-generation hardware; they might also initially see lower benefits as there are fairly few vehicles to communicate with. Making the feature standard on every new car is a way to overcome the penetration issue quickly, but it also deprives the car manufacturers of selling the feature separately as an option, making up for the additional costs incurred. Vehicle communication is also not an attractive proposition for product differentiation. The very essence of the system depends on many vehicles exchanging information in a standardized fashion. There is hardly any room for Mercedes-to-Mercedes-only, BMW-to-BMW-only, or Toyota-to-Toyota-only networking. Even if long-term differentiation on innovations is uncommon in the automotive industry, car manufacturers like to be independent with their individual feature premieres – and show functions which others do just not yet have. Stability or regional homogeneity has not yet been reached when it comes to the networking technology to be used for vehicle communication. Different standards 1389-1286/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2011.06.025
are being developed in different organizations – for example, European standardization does not converge yet, a result of the many diverging projects that were created when cooperative driver assistance systems became fashionable. Lately, in addition to the various variants of dedicated short-range communication undergoing standardization right now, 4G networks have also become contenders for carrying vehicle communication traffic. With the expected life-span of vehicles on the road of a decade or more, there is no room for trial and error. Once a system gets deployed it needs to work and be supported for many years to come. While technology demonstrations that encompass a handful of vehicles are abundant, field trials of a larger scale are still needed to create, instrument, and analyze real-life and, in particular, high-load situations. For this Special Issue to explore the state of deploying vehicle communications, we invited three papers from distinguished authors from North America, Japan, and Europe to shed light on the status quo of vehicle-2-x communication in their respective regions. Weiss [1] addresses the current situation in Europe and, in particular, Germany where one of the world’s largest field trials for vehicle communication is about to start. Misener [2] performs the same analysis for North America and Fukushima [3] provides an update on the deployment situation in Japan. Many of the concerns from vehicle manufacturers also apply to communication infrastructure providers. Concerns in respect to on-board hardware for the OEMs are the odds of funding, installing, and operating the rollout of roadside communications equipment and service provisioning to transport authorities. A major technical challenge for these providers is the optimal placement of ITS roadside stations, involving not only the question of location, but more generally how many of these stations are actually needed. Vales-Alonso et al. [4] address this challenge in their research paper. The majority of the research papers in this Special Issue address the challenges of testing and simulating various aspects of vehicle-to-x communication. While Röglinger [5] introduces a high-level methodology for testing intersection applications, the authors Schweiger et al. [6] present a more specific real-life testbed consisting of four inner-city intersections. Since such testbeds are expensive to scale, simulation tools are typically used to assess the effects and benefits
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Editorial / Computer Networks 55 (2011) 3101–3102
of vehicle-to-x applications. Again, a general overview is given by Stanica [7], including challenges, tools and respective recommendations. Schünemann [8] then introduces VSimRTI, a comprehensive simulation environment to couple existing simulators for accurate modeling of traffic and communication networks, for assessing applications utilizing vehicle-to-x communication. Along the way, drivers have to be included in the deployment process as well. After all, they have to learn and accept the novel assistance systems enabled by vehicle-2-x communication. This requires not only a good value proposition for these features, but also that the pitfalls of the new technology are identified and resolved right from the beginning. Does it not conjure up evil spirits of remotely interfering with vehicle operation, such as automatically cutting the speed of the car, or tracing and tracking individual car movements? Hence, in the last research paper Troncoso [9] addresses the difficulties of maintaining driver privacy in a vehicle network. The authors thank all authors and all reviewers who worked with us on producing this Special Issue. It seems that while all of us agree that progress in bringing vehicle-2-x communication to market was painfully slow over the past years, there is also a broad consensus that we will see this technology being deployed in all regions within the next decade. And, that this would be a good thing for traffic efficiency and road safety. References [1] C. Weiß, V2X communication in Europe – from research projects towards standardization and field testing of vehicle communication technology, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3103–3119. [2] J.A. Misener, S. Biswas, G. Larson, Development of V-to-X systems in North America: the promise, the pitfalls and the prognosis, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3120–3133. [3] M. Fukushima, The latest trend of v2x driver assistance systems in Japan, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3134–3141. [4] J. Vales-Alonso, F. Vicente-Carrasco, J.J. Alcaraz, Optimal configuration of roadside beacons in V2I communications, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3142–3153. [5] S. Röglinger, A methodology for testing intersection related vehicle-2X applications, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3154–3168. [6] B. Schweiger, C. Raubitschek, B. Bäker, J. Schlichter, ElisaTM – car to infrastructure communication in the field, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3169–3178.
[7] R. Stanica, E. Chaput, A.-L. Beylot, Simulation of vehicular ad-hoc networks: challenges, review of tools and recommendations, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3179–3188. [8] B. Schünemann, V2X simulation runtime infrastructure VSimRTI: an assessment tool to design smart traffic management systems, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3189–3198. [9] C. Troncoso, E. Costa-Montenegro, C. Diaz, S. Schiffner, On the difficulty of achieving anonymity for vehicle-2-X communication, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3199–3210.
Ralf G. Herrtwich is with Daimler Group Research and Advanced Engineering since 1998. After 10 years as Director for Infotainment and Telematics, he is now head of Driver Assistance and Chassis Systems, in charge of conceiving and developing future safety and comfort innovations for Mercedes-Benz. A computer scientist by education, Dr. Herrtwich started his career in academia at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) and ICSI at UC Berkeley. He then held positions with IBM and several telecommunication start-ups before joining Daimler. Today, he also is honorary professor at TUB and Director of the Daimler Center for Automotive Information Technology Innovations (DCAITI) at the same university.
Ilja Radusch is head of the competence center for Automotive Services and Communication Technologies (ASCT) at the Fraunhofer-Institute FOKUS and leading the Automotive Application Group at the Daimler Center for Automotive Information Technology Innovations (DCAITI). He is actively working in the fields of vehicle-2-x communication, Field Operational Testing, Sensor and Ad-hoc Networks, and Mobile Services. His responsibilities include various projects for industry partners such as Daimler AG and Deutsche Telekom as well as national and international research projects (simTD, DRIVE C2X, FOT-Net). Furthermore, he is also giving several lecture courses at the University of Technology in Berlin (TUB).
R.G. Herrtwich I. Radusch E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Radusch) Available online 5 July 2011
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Computer Networks journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comnet
Editorial
Editorial for the Special Issue: Deploying vehicle-2-x communication After many years of research in communication to and between vehicles, it seems that not much progress has been made in the actual deployment of vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication in the real world. The topic seems to be a very attractive field for scientific experimentation in regard to both applications that can be conceived and mechanisms that can be applied. But whereas many a paper was written on the subject, little of the technology can be actually seen on the road. When analyzing what is holding it back the obvious stakeholders come to mind: car manufactures, communication infrastructure providers, and last, but not least, the drivers as customers. Car manufacturers are a conservative bunch – and a tight-fisted one, too. Before adding a new piece of technology to their product, they have to be convinced that it improves their product and will find customer demand. It should not pose any life-cycle risks, i.e., it should neither become obsolete nor need to be modified while the vehicle is in the field. Ideally, it should work in any market in which the vehicle is sold with little need for regional adjustment. With vehicle communication, as with any other ‘‘networked’’ product, the attractiveness of the feature depends on the number of participants in the service. Early adopters might suffer twice: not only would they face higher costs for first-generation hardware; they might also initially see lower benefits as there are fairly few vehicles to communicate with. Making the feature standard on every new car is a way to overcome the penetration issue quickly, but it also deprives the car manufacturers of selling the feature separately as an option, making up for the additional costs incurred. Vehicle communication is also not an attractive proposition for product differentiation. The very essence of the system depends on many vehicles exchanging information in a standardized fashion. There is hardly any room for Mercedes-to-Mercedes-only, BMW-to-BMW-only, or Toyota-to-Toyota-only networking. Even if long-term differentiation on innovations is uncommon in the automotive industry, car manufacturers like to be independent with their individual feature premieres – and show functions which others do just not yet have. Stability or regional homogeneity has not yet been reached when it comes to the networking technology to be used for vehicle communication. Different standards 1389-1286/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2011.06.025
are being developed in different organizations – for example, European standardization does not converge yet, a result of the many diverging projects that were created when cooperative driver assistance systems became fashionable. Lately, in addition to the various variants of dedicated short-range communication undergoing standardization right now, 4G networks have also become contenders for carrying vehicle communication traffic. With the expected life-span of vehicles on the road of a decade or more, there is no room for trial and error. Once a system gets deployed it needs to work and be supported for many years to come. While technology demonstrations that encompass a handful of vehicles are abundant, field trials of a larger scale are still needed to create, instrument, and analyze real-life and, in particular, high-load situations. For this Special Issue to explore the state of deploying vehicle communications, we invited three papers from distinguished authors from North America, Japan, and Europe to shed light on the status quo of vehicle-2-x communication in their respective regions. Weiss [1] addresses the current situation in Europe and, in particular, Germany where one of the world’s largest field trials for vehicle communication is about to start. Misener [2] performs the same analysis for North America and Fukushima [3] provides an update on the deployment situation in Japan. Many of the concerns from vehicle manufacturers also apply to communication infrastructure providers. Concerns in respect to on-board hardware for the OEMs are the odds of funding, installing, and operating the rollout of roadside communications equipment and service provisioning to transport authorities. A major technical challenge for these providers is the optimal placement of ITS roadside stations, involving not only the question of location, but more generally how many of these stations are actually needed. Vales-Alonso et al. [4] address this challenge in their research paper. The majority of the research papers in this Special Issue address the challenges of testing and simulating various aspects of vehicle-to-x communication. While Röglinger [5] introduces a high-level methodology for testing intersection applications, the authors Schweiger et al. [6] present a more specific real-life testbed consisting of four inner-city intersections. Since such testbeds are expensive to scale, simulation tools are typically used to assess the effects and benefits
3102
Editorial / Computer Networks 55 (2011) 3101–3102
of vehicle-to-x applications. Again, a general overview is given by Stanica [7], including challenges, tools and respective recommendations. Schünemann [8] then introduces VSimRTI, a comprehensive simulation environment to couple existing simulators for accurate modeling of traffic and communication networks, for assessing applications utilizing vehicle-to-x communication. Along the way, drivers have to be included in the deployment process as well. After all, they have to learn and accept the novel assistance systems enabled by vehicle-2-x communication. This requires not only a good value proposition for these features, but also that the pitfalls of the new technology are identified and resolved right from the beginning. Does it not conjure up evil spirits of remotely interfering with vehicle operation, such as automatically cutting the speed of the car, or tracing and tracking individual car movements? Hence, in the last research paper Troncoso [9] addresses the difficulties of maintaining driver privacy in a vehicle network. The authors thank all authors and all reviewers who worked with us on producing this Special Issue. It seems that while all of us agree that progress in bringing vehicle-2-x communication to market was painfully slow over the past years, there is also a broad consensus that we will see this technology being deployed in all regions within the next decade. And, that this would be a good thing for traffic efficiency and road safety. References [1] C. Weiß, V2X communication in Europe – from research projects towards standardization and field testing of vehicle communication technology, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3103–3119. [2] J.A. Misener, S. Biswas, G. Larson, Development of V-to-X systems in North America: the promise, the pitfalls and the prognosis, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3120–3133. [3] M. Fukushima, The latest trend of v2x driver assistance systems in Japan, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3134–3141. [4] J. Vales-Alonso, F. Vicente-Carrasco, J.J. Alcaraz, Optimal configuration of roadside beacons in V2I communications, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3142–3153. [5] S. Röglinger, A methodology for testing intersection related vehicle-2X applications, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3154–3168. [6] B. Schweiger, C. Raubitschek, B. Bäker, J. Schlichter, ElisaTM – car to infrastructure communication in the field, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3169–3178.
[7] R. Stanica, E. Chaput, A.-L. Beylot, Simulation of vehicular ad-hoc networks: challenges, review of tools and recommendations, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3179–3188. [8] B. Schünemann, V2X simulation runtime infrastructure VSimRTI: an assessment tool to design smart traffic management systems, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3189–3198. [9] C. Troncoso, E. Costa-Montenegro, C. Diaz, S. Schiffner, On the difficulty of achieving anonymity for vehicle-2-X communication, Computer Networks 55 (14) (2011) 3199–3210.
Ralf G. Herrtwich is with Daimler Group Research and Advanced Engineering since 1998. After 10 years as Director for Infotainment and Telematics, he is now head of Driver Assistance and Chassis Systems, in charge of conceiving and developing future safety and comfort innovations for Mercedes-Benz. A computer scientist by education, Dr. Herrtwich started his career in academia at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) and ICSI at UC Berkeley. He then held positions with IBM and several telecommunication start-ups before joining Daimler. Today, he also is honorary professor at TUB and Director of the Daimler Center for Automotive Information Technology Innovations (DCAITI) at the same university.
Ilja Radusch is head of the competence center for Automotive Services and Communication Technologies (ASCT) at the Fraunhofer-Institute FOKUS and leading the Automotive Application Group at the Daimler Center for Automotive Information Technology Innovations (DCAITI). He is actively working in the fields of vehicle-2-x communication, Field Operational Testing, Sensor and Ad-hoc Networks, and Mobile Services. His responsibilities include various projects for industry partners such as Daimler AG and Deutsche Telekom as well as national and international research projects (simTD, DRIVE C2X, FOT-Net). Furthermore, he is also giving several lecture courses at the University of Technology in Berlin (TUB).
R.G. Herrtwich I. Radusch E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Radusch) Available online 5 July 2011