For more than a decade, communication systems based on the IEEE 802.11p technology—often referred to as Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC)—have been considered a de facto industry standard for Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication. The technology, however, is often criticized for its poor scalability, its suboptimal channel access method, and the need to install additional roadside infrastructure. In 3GPP Release 14, the functionality of existing cellular networks has been extended to support V2X use cases in an attempt to address the well-known drawbacks of the DSRC. In this paper, we present a complex simulation study in order to benchmark both technologies in a V2I communication context and an urban scenario. In particular, we compare the DSRC, LTE in the infrastructural mode (LTE-I), and LTE Device-to-Device (LTE-D2D) mode 3 in terms of the average end-to-end delay and Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) under varying communication conditions achieved through the variation of the communication perimeter, message generation frequency, and road traffic intensity. The obtained results are put into the context of the networking and connectivity requirements of the most popular V2I C-ITS services. The simulation results indicate that only the DSRC technology is able to support the investigated V2I communication scenarios without any major limitations, achieving an average end-to-end delay of less than 100 milliseconds and a PDR above 96% in all of the investigated simulation scenarios. The LTE-I is applicable for the most of the low-frequency V2I services in a limited communication perimeter (<600 m) and for lower traffic intensities (<1000 vehicles per hour), achieving a delay pf less than 500 milliseconds and a PDR of up to 92%. The LTE-D2D in mode 3 achieves too great of an end-to-end delay (above 1000 milliseconds) and a PDR below 72%; thus, it is not suitable for the V2I services under consideration in a perimeter larger than 200 m. Moreover, the LTE-D2D mode 3 is very sensitive to the distance between the transmitter and its serving eNodeB, which heavily impacts the PDR achieved.

In this paper, we present an assessment framework that can be used to score segments of physical and digital infrastructure based on their features and readiness to expedite the deployment of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs). We discuss the equipment and methodology applied for the collection and analysis of required data to score the infrastructure segments in an automated way. Moreover, we demonstrate how the proposed framework can be applied using data collected on a public transport route in the city of Zilina, Slovakia. We use two types of data to demonstrate the methodology of the assessment-connectivity and positioning data to assess the connectivity and localization performance provided by the infrastructure and image data for road signage detection using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The core of the research is a dataset that can be used for further research work. We collected and analyzed data in two settings—an urban and suburban area. Despite the fact that the connectivity and positioning data were collected in different days and times, we found highly underserved areas along the investigated route. The main problem from the point of view of communication in the investigated area is the latency, which is an issue associated with infrastructure segments mainly located at intersections with heavy traffic or near various points of interest. The low accuracy of localization has been observed mainly in dense areas with large buildings and trees, which decrease the number of visible localization satellites. To address the problem of automated assessment of the traffic sign recognition precision, we proposed a CNN that achieved 99.7% precision.

This article is focused on the automatic classification of passing vehicles through an experimental platform using optical sensor arrays. The amount of data generated from various sensor systems is growing proportionally every year. Therefore, it is necessary to look for more progressive solutions to these problems. Methods of implementing artificial intelligence are becoming a new trend in this area. At first, an experimental platform with two separate groups of fiber Bragg grating sensor arrays (horizontally and vertically oriented) installed into the top pavement layers was created. Interrogators were connected to sensor arrays to measure pavement deformation caused by vehicles passing over the pavement. Next, neural networks for visual classification with a closed-circuit television camera to separate vehicles into different classes were used. This classification was used for the verification of measured and analyzed data from sensor arrays. The newly proposed neural network for vehicle classification from the sensor array dataset was created. From the obtained experimental results, it is evident that our proposed neural network was capable of separating trucks from other vehicles, with an accuracy of 94.9%, and classifying vehicles into three different classes, with an accuracy of 70.8%. Based on the experimental results, extending sensor arrays as described in the last part of the paper is recommended.

With the deployment of Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs), new transport safety and efficiency applications are emerging. One of the fields where the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) is expected to bring great benefits, is emergency systems. A properly designed emergency vehicle warning system should provide car drivers with adequate reaction times and additional information, complementing the currently used lights and sirens. The objective is to increase road safety and to create conditions for a fast and reliable movement of emergency vehicles (EVs). The available literature addressing privacy issues in VANET-based emergency vehicle warning systems is strongly limited. In this paper, the privacy ensuring emergency vehicle approaching warning system (PEEV-WS) is proposed based on a requirements analysis. Privacy is ensured by avoiding transmissions of sensitive information (e.g., expected EV route) over the wireless channel. This is achieved by assigning the decision-making responsibility to an EV and determining which vehicles can potentially interfere with the EV in the near future, and to notify those vehicles only by unicasting vehicle-customized information. The performance of the system is evaluated by federated telco-traffic simulations in terms of end-to-end delay and message delivery probability for three commonly used ad hoc routing protocols—Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV), Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing (GPSR), and Dynamic MANET On-demand (DYMO), as well as in terms of reaction time, which the system provides to the drivers. Despite low applicability of the ad hoc routing protocols for vehicular communication, especially for low-latency and high-frequency applications, the simulations of the communication network demonstrate that the AODV protocol, with the modified configuration, can support the emergency vehicle warning system. The traffic simulations confirm that the system has the potential to provide drivers with sufficient reaction time.

The growing demand for extensive and reliable structural health monitoring resulted in the development of advanced optical sensing systems (OSS) that in conjunction with wireless optical networks (WON) are capable of extending the reach of optical sensing to places where fibre provision is not feasible. To support this effort, the paper proposes a new type of a variable weight code called multiweight zero cross-correlation (MW-ZCC) code for its application in wireless optical networks based optical code division multiple access (WON-OCDMA). The code provides improved quality of service (QoS) and better support for simultaneous transmission of video surveillance, comms and sensor data by reducing the impact of multiple access interference (MAI). The MW-ZCC code’s power of two code-weight properties provide enhanced support for the needed service differentiation provisioning. The performance of this novel code has been studied by simulations. This investigation revealed that for a minimum allowable bit error rate of ${10}^{-3}$, ${10}^{-9}$ and ${10}^{-12}$ when supporting triple-play services (sensing, datacomms and video surveillance, respectively), the proposed WON-OCDMA using MW-ZCC codes could support up to 32 simultaneous services over transmission distances up to 32 km in the presence of moderate atmospheric turbulence.