GuideWeb: Information Acquisition Analysis in a Conceptually Infrastructure-Free Vehicle Navigation System

Abstract

GuideWeb is a support network for vehicle navigation and guidance. It is constituted by the cooperation of a multitude of autonomous MapSynthesiser located in the vehicles. A MapSynthesiser, being the autonomous constitutional core of GuideWeb, receives over radio communication traffic flow information via information-enhanced maps (called map syntheses) from other GuideWeb participants’ MapSynthesiser. It creates from received map syntheses and the information of its own travel route a new map synthesis, which is then broadcasted. MapSynthesiser provides timely and accurate information on traffic flow, density and trend on how traffic will develop as well as traversability everywhere within a radius of approx. 100 km to a navigation system for driver assistance. MapSynthesiser cooperation is based on short range radio communication e.g. Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) according to IEEE 802.11 standards. Further, the information acquisition analysis shows that a MapSynthesiser density of only 2 % in a medium traffic load class enables the acquisition of 500 km of route information in approx. 15 min.