Abstract
Like the other emerging technologies such as computer evolution and embedded machines, the Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) have also gained much attention from various manufactures and academia. Moreover, we have several on board sensors installed inside the vehicles, responsible for sensing different activities within the vehicle and surrounding such as temperature, intruder detection and so on. Recently, those sensors/actuator systems became responsive to the physical world by enabling real time control emanating from conventional embedded systems, thus emerging a new research paradigm named Cyber-Physical System (CPS). Likewise, other applications for CPS, we have Vehicular Cyber-Physical System (VCPS) that is not a new concept. For now, VCPS may refer to a wide range of transportation management system that is integrated strongly and should be highly accurate, real-time, and efficient. This chapter provides readers with the details of the term “VCPS” followed by the historical overview of this new emerging field including research challenges and future aspects of the VCPS.
TopIntroduction
According to the recent report by Transportation Research Board (Washington, DC, 2013), the world has been facing a lot of challenges related to the transportation system. The system is neither reliable nor robust. As the result of which significant expiries and injuries are faced by the world. It also influences energy, environment and climate. For example, in US over 37000 people die annually due to the road crashes. Similarly, traffic congestion drain off $87.2 billion of the US economy, with 4.2 billion hours and 2.8 billion of fuel spent sitting in traffic (Broy, Kruger, Pretschner & Salzmann, 2007). Hence, there is an urgent petition is required to revise transportation system and introduce resiliency, in order to reduce injuries; improve unmanageable environmental impacts and mortalities. The most desirable issues in transportation can efficiently be sorted out by means of cyber physical systems (CPS). The following sections enlighten that how CPSs are modeled.
The most important use of computer and software is to process the raw data and efficiently convert into information, in order to take a decision. The large ranges of computers in use, however, are less visible, they might be used in engines, seatbelts, airbags, brake system, steering systems in a car. They might be used in cell phone for digitally encoding your voice, convert into radio signals and then send it from the cell phone to the base station. They derive washing machine, deep freezer, dishwasher, and printers. They operate robots, power plants, and traffic lights, find for microorganisms in genetic models, draws images of the inside of a human body. They fetch life to toys by enabling them to respond to human sound, and touch. They derive planes and trains. Now-a-days, they are part of almost all the fields of life. These less noticeable computers are termed as embedded Systems, whereas the software they are using is entitled as embedded software.
Despite of the effect, they have widespread occurrences in almost all the fields of lives, but they are only viewed as an information processing source, just like an ordinary computer system.
Recently, researchers have recognized that these systems require distinct engineering techniques for analysis and design these systems. Though, the field of embedded system has been in use since the 1970s, but they are only considered as small computers. The primary engineering issue was considered to be the one have limited resources (small memory, limited processing, and limited energy, etc.). It was concluded that engineering problem was to improve the design, since optimization can be achieved by achieved by improving the design, therefore the discipline was not different from computer science in any aspect. It just had to be more destructive to apply the same optimization techniques.
Recently, researchers pointed out that the major challenge in embedded system stems their interaction with other physical processes, and from their limited resources. Hence, the field Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) came into existence shown in Figure 1. The term CPS was invented to be the key area of research, by Hylen Gill. Starting in late 2006, the National Science Foundation in the U.S. referred to the amalgamation of computation with physical processes. Unlike traditional embedded systems, a full-fledged CPS is intended as a network of interconnecting components with physical input and output as impartial device. Ongoing improvements in the field of science and technology will increase the link between computation and physical elements by using intelligent mechanisms. Moreover, it will increase adaptability, reliability, functionality, security, independence, and usability of CPS.
CPS can be viewed as the following two perspectives: formation and function. According to the perspective of formation, it consists of embedded system and network components, whereas from the perspective of function, it utilizes feedback tool to control the physical environment.
Modern cars consist of over 100 electronic control units, which communicate with each other using FlexRay and CAN bus, establishing a network environment.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Challenges for Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems: It is known that the requirements for development of complex CPSs has been increasing therefore, overall system complexity has been increasing dramatically. In order to understand software’s functionality in hardware, which provides advancement and elasticity, but it shouldn’t be viewed as less expensive part.
V2V: Vehicular-to-Vehicular communications.
Cyber-Physical Cloud Computing: A Cyber-Physical Cloud Computing architectural framework is defined as a system environment that can rapidly build, modify and provision auto-scale cyber-physical systems composed of a set of cloud computing based sensor, processing, control, and data services.
CPS Integration in VANETs: The Cyber Physical System consists of communication, computing, sensing, and actuation devices for the development of a wide range of applications and services. It’s also defined as the real-time combination of computational and physical systems, so that physical systems act in a way to provide the best benefits to the environment.
Distributed VCPS Applications: VANET has a great role in developing a wide range of applications to help passengers in emergency conditions like foggy situation, icy road, heavy rain, risky road condition etc., in order to improve the safety conditions. It also assists drivers in safety entrance, safety exits, safety turns, avoid dangerous obstacles on the roads ahead, improve the traffic signals by using adaptive techniques, re-routing of the traffic at rush hours, and many more.
Driverless Vehicles: Driverless vehicles or autonomous vehicles are also called as self-deriving vehicles, are those in which operations of vehicles like steering, acceleration, breaking happen without direct driver input. So the driers are not expected to continuously monitor the road while driving in self-driving mode.
Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
VANETs: Vehicular Ad hoc Networks consist of vehicles communicating over the wireless medium.
Cyber-Physical Systems: Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) are smart networked systems with embedded sensors, processors and actuators that are designed to sense and interact with the physical world (including the human users), and support real-time, guaranteed performance in safety-critical applications; Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered systems that are built from, and depend upon, the seamless integration of computational algorithms and physical components.
Vehicular Cloud Networking: Vehicular Cloud Networking is the integration of vehicular cloud computing with information centric networking, which is a general form of communication architecture to achieve efficient content distribution on the Internet.
Aviation Cyber-Physical Systems: The US established next Generation Air Transportation system in 2003 using satellite based technology. This technology let know the pilots about the precise location other planes around them. Hence it allows more planes to fly safely.
Vehicular Cloud Computing: Vehicular Cloud Computing is a new paradigm in which vehicles interact and collaborate to sense the environment, process the data, propagate the results and more generally share resources.
Vehicular Cloud: A vehicular cloud is a group of largely autonomous vehicles whose corporate computing, sensing, communication, and physical resources can be coordinated and dynamically allocated to authorized users.
V2I: Vehicular-to-Infrastructure communications.
New Evolution: Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS): The term CPS has enabled development of the social services through modern hallucination that exceeded time and space to a dimension which has never seen before. CPS is the combination of physical and computational processes, but it is about the intersection, not the union of physical and cyber systems. A CPS is an integration of communication, computation, and storage ability with monitoring and/or control of physical processes in the world, and must do safely, dependably, securely, real-time, and efficiently.