DEPHISIT

NICS Lab contributed to the project by implementing a gateway between sensors in the vehicle and the mobiles devices that uploads relevant information to the Cloud in order to assist the drivers and other vehicles. More specifically:

• On the vehicle side, we developed a prototype secure sensor network using the nRF24 wireless chip and a gateway that connects to this WSN and the car BUS, and exposes as much information as possible to the driver smartphone using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). For the WSN we have used Intel Galileo and for the Gateway a Raspberry Pi. Apart from that, we have implemented a prototype child seat protection device that detects the harness state and the weight of the child in order to inform the driver when the seat is not in a safe state, i.e. child is seated but harness is open. For this prototype we have used RFDuino.
• We have also developed different infrastructure sensors, using the RFDuino platform, that broadcast information using BLE advertisement mechanism, e.g. Water sensors, temperature sensors, traffic lights, traffic signals, etc. We have designed a simple frame format to include the location of the device the information about it sensors. Using the same technology, we also developed a prototype for a bicycle beacon that continually broadcast a message to nearby vehicles in order to make them aware of its presence. It can also detect that the cyclist had an accident and notify surrounding vehicles about that fact. 
• On the driver side, we developed an Android service that connects to the BLE gateway and monitor in background all the information that is made available. It can also connect to other BLE devices in the car (e.g. child seat protection device). The Android service is also listening for infrastructure devices. It collects the broadcasted information and launches the corresponding events. We developed a sample application that uses this service and represent the state of each device graphically.