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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

This system design document, while providing setup and software configuration guides for original connected vehicle (CV) test tools, also serves as a valuable resource to gain an understanding of how intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are designed. There has been an emphatic demand to educate the technical workforce for the impending technological revolution in public transportation and mobility caused by the introduction of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) (FHWA, 2017) in the very near future. Stakeholders and governing bodies like the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) and Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) have a vested interest in creating programs to address this need (USDOT ITS JPO, 2020). As a continuation of successful efforts to bridge this knowledge gap with a help desk and equipment loan service, ITS JPO and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have tasked the Saxton Transportation Operations Laboratory (STOL) with a project to design education materials for technical workforce development.

One of these education materials, Connected and Automated Vehicle education (CAVe)-in-a-box, is a tool that allows beginners to learn about many of the V2V, V2I, and V2P connected vehicle applications. However, to provide a comprehensive understandings of the technology and the protocols, this document focuses on applications, such as emergency vehicle preemption or the transmission of wireless radio messages like basic safety, Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT), traveler information, and personal safety in a variety of ITS environments. Groups that can benefit from the portability and modularity of CAVe-in-a-box include: future technicians at community colleges and trade schools, new hires at equipment vendors, bench testers at certification consortiums, and transportation researchers.

This system design document serves as a compendium to CAVe-in-a-box. It ensures that users of the onboard and roadside test toolkits are able to understand component setup and configuration, as well as how ITS data flows are used to dictate system designs. Addressing the knowledge gap identified by ITS JPO and FHWA requires that the future workforce not only be able to use test tools, but also understand how and why they work.

BACKGROUND

As CAV technologies transition from research and pilot applications to large-scale deployments, the current niche skills associated with installation, setup, and maintenance of devices and systems will need to be performed by technicians and engineers on a large scale. The existing workforce does not have the training resources to perform these tasks with consistency in implementation, instead relying on individual knowledge and interpretation of standards and designs to maintain and install devices.

Decades of pedagogical research have shown that a single type of training material is not suitable for deployments with a variety of learning styles and levels. The training used for deploying CAV technologies must be presented with manifold resources to a diverse audience of learners. The CAVe-in-a-box toolkit is a training resource to help the emerging workforce learn different components of CAV technologies, from the initial learning phase to a complete deployment state.

A wireless communication technology called Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) has traditionally carried out the research, testing, and deployment of CV technologies in the ITS domain. In the past couple of years, another wireless technology, Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X), has moved up in the ranks. The different channelization schemes and timing requirements set C-V2X apart from DSRC. C-V2X is based on a wireless architecture similar to that of cell phones, and, contrary to DSRC, uses multiple carriers in blocks of smaller subframes. This allows for robust resource utilization and scheduling techniques for high-density, high-speed uses cases, featuring roadway safety applications. More research is needed to understand the real world applications for the widespread usage of C-V2X.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this document are as follows:

1. Introduce CAVe-in-a-box as a technical tool for educational purposes.
2. Provide detailed documentation of all aspects related to CAVe-in-a-box, from required electrical and mechanical components to physical connections.
3. Provide information on software requirements for the kit, including testing and debugging. Provide hands-on use cases and examples related to CAVe-in-a-box.

While ITS encompass a variety of applications and technologies, CAV technology is primarily concerned with how vehicles can leverage wireless communication to interact with infrastructure, surrounding vehicles, pedestrians, and/or other roadway users. Thus, the future workforce in the CAV space should be familiar with the required components, communication protocols, and embedded systems concepts. CAVe-in-a-box makes these key components accessible, enabling the teaching, development, testing, and eventual deployment of CV applications. CAVe-in-a-box can allow students and educators to test many applications, such as:

• Pedestrian safety applications, to understand how pedestrian messages can be used to provide safe roadway access to pedestrians
• SPaT applications, to understand the process of intersection signal controller operation
• Basic Safety Message (BSM) application, to study how vehicles transmit their vehicle data

When scaled down, a CAV system can be represented as two interacting entities: the vehicle and its environment. As such, CAVe-in-a-box contains two major components: the mobile kit, representing the vehicle, and the infrastructure kit, representing the environment. The two kits interact with each other through encoded broadcasts from a variety of possible data flows. For example, one function of the mobile kit is to collect vehicle data, such as location, and broadcast this data to its surrounding environment. The infrastructure kit will decode and log any received messages. In the reverse direction, the infrastructure kit may receive information from another environmental entity, such as a pedestrian or traffic management center, and broadcast this message to the mobile kit. There are a variety of possible data flows from various entities in a CAV system. The CAVe-in-a-box toolkit will replicate these two environments, showing the exchange of data between them.

Details of the components of each CAVe-in-a-box toolkit, the relevant standards and protocols, and the potential data flows can be found in the following chapters:

• Chapter 2 – Describes the system design of the toolkit.
• Chapter 3 – Focuses on the data flows in different components.
• Chapter 4 – Shows the setup and construction of the toolkit.
• Chapter 5 – Describes software configurations required to set up different components.
• Chapter 6 – Highlights a few use cases for CAVe-in-a-box.
• Chapter 7 – Concludes and provides an overall summary of the toolkit.

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