Friend: A cyber-physical system for traffic flow related information aggregation and dissemination

In this paper, we introduce the theoretical foundations of FRIEND: A cyber-physical system for traffic Flow-Related Information aggrEgatioN and Dissemination. By integrating resources and capabilities at the nexus between the cyber and physical worlds, FRIEND will contribute to aggregating traffic flow data collected by the huge fleet of vehicles on our roads into a comprehensive, near real-time synopsis of traffic flow conditions. We anticipate providing the drivers with a meaningful, color-coded, at-a-glance view of flow conditions ahead, alerting them to congested traffic. FRIEND can be used to provide accurate information about traffic flow and can be used to propagate this information. The workhorses of FRIEND are the ubiquitous lane delimiters (a.k.a. cat-eyes) on our roadways that, at the moment, are used simply as dumb reflectors. Our main vision is that by endowing cat's eyes with a modest power source, detection and communication capabilities they will play an important role in collecting, aggregating and disseminating traffic flow conditions to the driving public. We envision the cat-eye system to be supplemented by road-side units (RSU) deployed at regular intervals (e.g. every km or so). The RSUs placed on opposite sides of the roadway constitute a logical unit and are connected. The physical components of FRIEND collect traffic flow-related data from passing vehicles. The collected data is used by an inference engine in the RSU's cyber component to build beliefs about the state of the traffic, to detect traffic trends, and to disseminate relevant traffic flow-related information along the roadway.