Making your car a wireless network node

With all of the electronic gadgets and components in cars and trucks these days is it possible they could become mobile wireless network nodes too? That’s the idea behind a project at UCLA that uses about $1,000 of wireless technology deployed in cars which enables them to act as nodes in a truly mobile network.  UCLA Engineering’s Network Research Lab is looking at using cars to form a communications network based on the principles of technology known as a mobile ad-hoc networking platform, or MANET. The MANET platform lets moving vehicles within a range of 100 to 300 meters of each other to connect and, car by car, create a network with a wide range. As cars fall out of range and drop out of the network, other node-equipped cars can join in to receive or send signals. The system has consumer applications but the researcher says its first applications will targeted at emergency response vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks and police cars. Currently, the California Department of Transportation is working with UCLA’s team to develop vehicle sensors that detect highway problems–such as large potholes–and the mobile network that would transmit the information instantly.  Th4e military also has been looking into the technology behind MANETs.  In a wartime situation drivers in networked vehicles would have access to information about dangers within or near their mobile network, such as the presence of smoke or radiation from a dirty bomb said UCLA computer science professor Mario Gerla in a statement.  Just one vehicle would need to be equipped with a detection device in order for the other vehicles to be aware of the threat. Drivers could also find out about escape routes over the network in the event of an attack. Access to the Internet or to a cellular phone system now requires that a tower or other stationary access point be within range. The mobile network bypasses this by connecting vehicles to one another until, eventually, everyone is connected to everyone else, and a mobile Internet is created. Access to the fixed Internet can then be obtained indirectly, through any of the mobile Internet vehicles. “We have all of these computer devices as integrated systems inside our cars,” Gerla said. “It’s time to extend that concept. Computers are already being installed in many vehicles, and wireless capability will soon follow, so a mobile network deployment would only require the relatively low-cost addition of sensors to the vehicle’s roof and bumpers and configuring the computer with new ‘mobile’ applications.”  With a successful field test already completed, the university’s team has plans to develop a UCLA Campus Vehicle Testbed, or C-VeT, through a wireless testbed environment called WHYNET — developed and shared by a multi-university research consortium involving computer science and electrical engineering faculty from five University of California campuses, USC and the University of Delaware, with funding provided by the National Science Foundation. C-VeT will be accessible remotely by any research institution via a Web interface. Building a collaborative network out of new cars, however, is not an easy task, Gerla said in a statement. Consumers will need to play a major role in the development of car-to-car networks, and there is one major hurdle facing widespread adoption: privacy concerns surrounding turning a car into part of a larger network. Not every driver will want to share the status or contents of their system, no matter how benign the data may be.