Low Cost Identification Applications in Traffic Vehicular Environments
Low Cost Identification Applications in Traffic Vehicular Environments
Low Cost Identification Applications in Traffic Vehicular Environments
1. Introduction
The world is becoming wireless. In contrast with wired technologies, wireless technologies
are widespread in several sectors and they are more and more present in many aspects of
life. Wireless includes any technologies which uses no wire. They can be applied for specific
applications and have been standardized. (Bluetooth or IEEE 802.15.1, WiFi or IEEE 802.11,
ZigBee or IEEE 802.15.4, RFID standardized as ISO 18000, etc).
One of the most valuable reasons for the growth of wireless technologies for
communications is the requirements for the mobility of modern applications. These
requirements, and also security, make wireless technologies one of the best candidates for
these applications and for establishing secure communications in traffic vehicular
environments, so for vehicle to vehicle (V2V) as well as for vehicle to infrastructure (V2I).
Electronic Registration and Identification (ERI) of vehicles is a way to identify a vehicle
univocally by means of some kind of wireless technology for communication. This protocol
allows a wide range of interesting ITS applications, which involves secure identification of
vehicles using symmetrical and asymmetrical techniques. These applications could be
applied in private and public services (tolling systems, access to parking lots, information
services, etc ).
Figure 1 shows a schema which explains the whole architecture in order to understand how
ERI standards are settled within an AVI/AEI architecture proposed in ISO 14814.
A specific application programming interface of wireless communications developed for
Electronic Registration of Vehicles is explained in this chapter as an example of application
of this technology. The philosophy of this concept is gathered in the ISO/TS 24534 and
ISO/TS 24535 standards, also named ERI standards. This family of standards establishes the
architecture of reference to Vehicle Identification independently of the physical technology
used, so they do not specify a particular wireless technology to develop any kind of system
application (the standard just suggests DSRC technology for deployment of the protocol). In
other terms, these standards are linked to the Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI/AEI)
family of standards, which are ISO 14814 to 14816. This family of standards is the
framework in which ERI is included.
Taking into account what is explained in the standards, ERI protocol allows establishing
secure communications between the road infrastructure and the moving vehicles. This is an
issue in which several Traffic administrations have been interested in. In this sense,
Source: Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions, Book edited by: Cristina Turcu,
ISBN 978-953-7619-74-9, pp. 356, February 2010, INTECH, Croatia, downloaded from SCIYO.COM
268 Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions
- RFID within VIKING Euror-regional Project was based in EVI project by ERTICO, and
studied the suitability of passive UHF RFID tags for monitoring applications. This
project finished in 2004.
- e-Plate project in the UK and Canada which made an implementation of RFID system
for vehicle identification. The project began in 2004 and finished in 2006.
- In Japan, there are some related projects for smart plates using DSRC and RFID
[SMART_PLATE].
All these projects plot a worldwide sample of the development of electronic identification
for vehicles.
2.3 e-Plate
e-Plate is a plate with an on-board chip which transmits a unique identifier for each vehicle.
A small detector ‘reads’ the encrypted information and the output of the detector can be
used locally or to transmit the encrypted message to a remote host. It was developed by
Hills Numberplates Ltd in Birmingham – UK.
This project was initiated in 2004 by the British Government. It used active RFID technology
embedded in the plate for the automatic identification of vehicles in the country. This
project was developed and validated with trials during three years. Each e-Plate has an
embedded tag with an encrypted (128 bits) and unique identifier number, which is
transmitted by the tag and is detected by the RFID reader. The system allows simultaneous
readings of multiple tags.
Fig. 3. RFID tag by Hill Numberplates Ltd and e-Plate reader by i-Port
3. ERI standards
ISO 24534 and 24535 [ERI_1], [ERI_2], [ERI_3], [ERI_4], [ERI_5], [ERI_BAS] describe all the
required information for the establishment of identification and registration of vehicles by
means of secure communications between vehicle and infrastructure. These standards
describe the protocol for Electronic Registration and Identification. The first one is organised
in 5 parts which establish the architecture of the system by means of the specification of its
parts: ERT (tag) and ERR (reader). It also specifies the requirements of the system, establish
operational parameters, defines functionalities, describes a data model and defines two
security modes: by using symmetrical techniques and by using asymmetrical techniques.
Figure 1 shows a graph which represents the architecture of AVI/AEI (Automatic Vehicle
Identification), where the ERI layer which allows communication and control capacities can
be distinguished.
Figure 4 shows the different streams which both standards can define for different
applications. The parts of the standard implemented are shown in orange colour. In the
implementation of this standard some developments have been made in the AVI and ERI
layers and the control and communication sublayer.
associated standards have also been studied to be used in this implementation, such as WiFi
(802.11 b/g), Bluetooth (802.15.1), RFID (ISO 18000-4), ZigBee (802.15.4) and others.
Figure 5 shows a layered representation of this implementation. This implementation was
made in Java, using J2ME for mobile devices on-board the vehicle (PDA) and J2SE for
devices in the infrastructure (fixed and outside the vehicle).
Fig. 7. Antenna for the reader in the Electromagnetic Anechoic Chamber at the University of
Valencia.
Taking into account reading distance and velocity, the EVI applications implemented
present different profiles according to ISO 24534-2 [ERI_2]. The applications used:
- Theft vehicles control: static readings and at short distances. The profiles used are ERT-
D6 for the velocity and ERT-C7 to C9 reading distance.
- Parking access control: static readings or with low velocity (less than 20 km/h) and at
medium distances. The profiles used are ERT-D5 the velocity (the velocity for accessing
a parking lot should not be greater than 25 km/h) and ERT-C6 to C9 (distance under 10
metres).
- Average velocity control: dynamic readings (different ranges of measurements) and
variable distances.
Fig. 8. Radiation pattern for the test antenna in horizontal and vertical polarization.
Low Cost Identification Applications in Traffic Vehicular Environments 275
Tests with the vehicle in movement allowed testing within the communication zone.
Communication between tag (inside the vehicle) and the reader was established. (located at
the Institute of Robotics).
The tests were made at three communication distances: at 10 metres from the reader antenna
(black point), at 22 metres (green point) and at 45 metres (white point). Also several
velocities were used: 20 km/h, 40 km/h and 60 km/h (due to velocity limitations in the
urban circuit). Figure 9 shows the communication area for the tests.
Fig. 9. Power distribution within the communication zone in the test area.
Figure 10 shows a capture of the data transmitted, processed and collected by the reader.
The interchanged information is extracted from the ISO 24534-3. The information sent to the
ERR was PDU, vehicle ID, chassis number, brand, model and colour of the vehicle.
5. Conclusions
This work has produced an API for the development of applications for Electronic
Registration and Identification of vehicles has been implemented. This API has been
published under GNU/GPL license. (API and documentation can be downloaded from
http://smagris3.uv.es/preri).
Several applications for test have also been implemented. Three wireless technologies (WiFi,
Bluetooth and RFID) have been proposed. These applications have been installed on the
PDA and have been tested in a road next to the Institute of Robotics at the University of
Valencia.
The tests of the developed applications have showed that [Segura, 2008]:
- The used technologies are valid for the applications implemented for slow uses (up to
60 kph).
- The discovery time in Bluetooth devices is too high (between 10 and 40 seconds) for
dynamic applications.
- WiFi has problems in the discovery process through SSID due to the fact that it is not
implemented in the version used of the J2ME. In the tests a fixed private range of IPs
was used to simulate this behaviour; however it would present problems in a real
implementation.
- WiFi and Bluetooth had high error taxes in the communication for velocities higher
than 60 km/h. This is not the case for RFID.
- The amount of information to be transmitted in WiFi and Bluetooth applications are
higher than in RFID.
- In case of a high humidity (or in a rainy day), the frequency of these three technologies
used (2,45 GHz) has a high power attenuation.
6. Future research
This research has allowed establishing a framework to allow programmers to develop
applications for electronic registration of vehicles. From the results obtained, this API can be
applied to secure communications between vehicle and infrastructure by using asymmetric
and symmetric security.
For future research, we are going to finish implementing Basic ERI (as shown in figure 4).
We are also going to implement discovery process in WiFi technology by using a new
version of the J2ME and assigning a wide range of IPs in order to avoid problems in a real
deployment. Other technologies, as ZigBee (802.15.4) or WAVE (802.11p), are going to be
implemented and tested.
Low Cost Identification Applications in Traffic Vehicular Environments 279
7. References
[Inno_Report, 2007] Innovations Report (30.03.2007) “New long-range RFID technology
from VTT for Chinese road tolls”. <http://www.innovationsreport.de/
html/berichte/verkehr_logistik/bericht-81876.html>. Last visit: 30.07.2009.
[ERTICO_D2, 2004] EVI ERTICO: D2 - Final Requirements
[ERTICO_D3, 2004] EVI ERTICO: D3 - High-level architectures, technology & realization
options
[ERTICO_D4, 2004] EVI ERTICO: D4 - Final Assessment
[ERTICO_D5, 2004] EVI ERTICO: D5 - Conclusions & Recommendations
[SMART_PLATE] "Smart License Plate", http://www.apec-tptwg.org.cn/new/Archives/
tpt-wg28/Intermodal/2006_TPT-WG-28_IEG_018.ppt. Last visit: 03.08.2009
[ERI_1] CEN ISO/TS 24534-1 Road transport and traffic telematics – Automatic vehicle and
equipment identification – Electronic Registration Identification (ERI) for vehicles -
Part 1: Architecture
[ERI_2] CEN ISO/TS 24534-2 Road transport and traffic telematics – Automatic vehicle and
equipment identification – Electronic Registration Identification (ERI) for vehicles -
Part 2: Operational requirements
[ERI_3] CEN ISO/TS 24534-3 Road transport and traffic telematics – Automatic vehicle and
equipment identification – Electronic Registration Identification (ERI) for vehicles -
Part 3: Vehicle data
[ERI_4] CEN ISO/TS 24534-4 Road transport and traffic telematics – Automatic vehicle and
equipment identification – Electronic Registration Identification (ERI) for vehicles -
Part 4: Secure communications using asymmetric techniques
[ERI_5] CEN ISO/TS 24534-5 Road transport and traffic telematics – Automatic vehicle and
equipment identification – Electronic Registration Identification (ERI) for vehicles -
Part 5: Secure communications using symmetric techniques
[ERI_BAS] CEN ISO/TS 24535 Road transport and traffic telematics – Automatic vehicle and
equipment identification – Basic electronic registration identification
[Pering, 2005] T. Pering, V.Raghunathan, R. Want; “Exploiting radio hierarchies or power-
efficient wireless device discovery and connection setup”. Proc. 18th International
Conference on VLSI. Kolkata, India. Jan. 3-7, 2005.
[Jiang, 2004] JR Jiang, BR Lin, YCh Tseng; “Analysis of Bluetooth device discovery and
some speed-up mecanisms”. Bluetooth White Papers. National Chiao-Tung
University. Jul, 2004.
http://whitepapers.silicon.com/0,39024759,60143957p,00.htm
[802_11] IEEE 802.11 IEEE Standard for Information technology-Telecommunications and
information exchange between systems-Local and metropolitan area networks-
Specific requirements - Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and
Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications.
[802_15_1] Bluetooth Core Specification Versions * Version 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR),
adopted November, 2004
[802_15_4] IEEE 802.15 Wireless Personal Area Networks
[RFID_4] ISO/IEC 18000-4 Parameters for Air Interface Communications at 2.45 GHz
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