California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

Researchers investigated the testing and evaluation of radio and communication protocol standards for the 5.9 GHz spectrum that has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission for exclusive transportation use. This spectrum allocation is intended for use as Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) in the context of high-value Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications. In this report, we summarize the Wireless Access in a Vehicular Environment (WAVE) standardization effort for 5.9 GHz DSRC, its current status, and related issues of the IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 1609 family of standards. We also present an overview of current DSRC development activities in the world context, in the United States, and in California, describing and comparing some of the current commercial implementations. To verify the performance of DSRC prototype radios, we conducted a series of testing in different scenarios. A physical layer simulation and FPGA testbed was developed at the UnWiReD Lab, University of California, Los Angeles, and a software applications programming interface (API) used in tests with different commercial hardware was developed at California PATH, UC Berkeley. The WAVE standards effort, in which we participated, is described, and testing procedures and results are presented. An architecture for DSRC testbeds for safe intersections is reported, focusing on the hardware/software issues, performance and possible future enhancements. Finally, a user‘s guide to our developed software for testing DSRC/WAVE systems is provided as an appendix.