Lessons Learned from the Real-world Deployment of a Connected Vehicle Testbed

TL;DR

This paper shares lessons learned from deploying the Clemson University Connected Vehicle Testbed, highlighting technical challenges, solutions, and insights for advancing real-world connected vehicle systems and applications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive account of deploying a multi-application CV testbed, including architecture development, deployment experiences, and validation of diverse applications in real-world conditions.

Findings

Validated the ability to run multiple CV applications simultaneously.

Identified challenges in heterogeneous wireless networking and data management.

Provided deployment insights to guide future CV system implementations.

Abstract

The connected vehicle (CV) system promises unprecedented safety, mobility, environmental, economic and social benefits, which can be unlocked using the enormous amount of data shared between vehicles and infrastructure (e.g., traffic signals, centers). Real world CV deployments including pilot deployments help solve technical issues and observe potential benefits, both of which support the broader adoption of the CV system. This study focused on the Clemson University Connected Vehicle Testbed (CUCVT) with the goal of sharing the lessons learned from the CUCVT deployment. The motivation of this study was to enhance early CV deployments with the objective of depicting the lessons learned from the CUCVT testbed, which includes unique features to support multiple CV applications running simultaneously. The lessons learned in the CUCVT testbed are described at three different levels: i) the development of system architecture and prototyping in a controlled environment, ii) the deployment of the CUCVT testbed, and iii) the validation of the CV application experiments in the CUCVT. Our field experiments with a CV application validated the functionalities needed for running multiple diverse CV applications simultaneously under heterogeneous wireless networking, and realtime and non real time data analytics requirements. The unique deployment experiences, related to heterogeneous wireless networks, real time data aggregation, a distribution using broker system and data archiving with big data management tools, gained from the CUCVT testbed, could be used to advance CV research and guide public and private agencies for the deployment of CVs in the real world.