Introduction

With the recent advances in autonomous driving and electric mobility, direct communication between road users is becoming increasingly important. It allows vehicles to exchange their own state and hazard information with each other and infrastructure, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of road traffic. However, research and development have focused mainly on communication between vehicles (V2V) and with the infrastructure (V2I), while vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as cyclists and pedestrians have largely been neglected and are behind in development. It is precisely these users who are particularly at risk in urban traffic due to blind spots and limited visibility, and who often suffer severe injuries in accidents. To integrate VRUs into the V2X ecosystem, a portable communication device is needed that reliably captures and broadcasts their position and movement. Unlike in a vehicle, the available space, weight, power consumption, and cost are severely constrained. Although proprietary V2X hardware exists, it is usually not commercially available and has no publicly listed prices, which makes it practically unusable for VRUs. Low cost, commercial off the shelf (COTS) hardware offers a promising approach. MCUs like the ESP32-C5 provides integrated Wi-Fi that can be switched into the IEEE 802.11p mode used for V2X, while being small, inexpensive, and energy efficient.

Task

The goal of this bachelor's thesis is to develop a modular prototype for V2X communication of vulnerable road users, built entirely from COTS hardware. The platform is based on an ESP32-C5 running the ZephyrOS. After a detailed analysis of suitable sensors and requirements for V2X messages, a prototype based on these sensors is built. The prototype records both the received V2X messages and the sensor data and stores them for later analysis. Finally, the recorded data is evaluated with respect to its temporal and content quality, in order to assess whether it is sufficient for standard compliant V2X communication and to derive the minimum requirements that the individual hardware components must meet.

Contact

If you are interested just contact Leonard Zurek to discuss further details.