Use of Emerging Internet of Things Technologies for Developing Infrastructure-to-Vehicle Communication Systems

Abstract

Infrastructure-to-vehicle (I2V) communication is an essential part of an intelligent transportation system. Bluetooth low energy (BLE) is one of the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that can enable the exchange of data at low-energy consumption. This study evaluated the application of IoT technologies, in particular BLE beacons—I2V communication devices to support autonomous vehicle (AV) operation in a real-world setting. An AV development platform built on a Lexus RX450h car was used to perform the evaluation. The testing program included two controlled-environment experiments and two real-world validation experiments. The controlled-environment experiments were used to select the BLE beacon settings to be considered. The validation experiments were performed in two different settings: a city street and an interstate highway in the City of Cincinnati in Ohio. To this end, beacons were attached to 10 different traffic signs in a city street as well as to a side barrier of an interstate highway. The ability of the AV to detect the traffic signs and the beacons attached to the side barrier was evaluated at different speeds. The study revealed promising results and indicated that the BLE beacon technology could potentially be a reliable solution to develop I2V communication systems that can be easily deployed to modify existing transportation infrastructure.