SBIR-STTR Award

There are a number of basic questions that need to be answered so that IntelliDrive mobile applications can be developed to ensure maximum compatibility with various mobile application platforms. This proposal put forth specific activities that will answer these basic questions on popular mobile platforms: IPhone, iPad, Android, Microsoft's Phone 7, Black Berry, Palm's, WebOS, Nokia's Symbian, Garmin Communicator, and TomTom navigator Devices. Development platforms, SDK, development method and delivery processes for each mobile app will be examined and a summary report will be produced. Mobile app for each platform will be experimented and their capabilities and limitations will be summarized. A plug-in to mobile app SDK is proposed to abstract out and standardize interface to the IntelliDrive system. Requirements updates, quality control, and approval method will be examined using the plug-in approach. A data logging app will be developed on Droid and iPhone/iPad platforms to gather data to answer some of the posted questions. Combining GPS data, rate of change (speed), delta of rate of change (acceleration) with referenced GPS data of freeways, rails, and other geographic locations, will be examined to determine mode of travel.

The goal of this research is to study the feasibility that mobile devices have the capabilities and accuracy to be used as positioning devices for connected vehicles programs. We will demonstrate this proposition by implementing positioning capturing apps using the build in GPS and accelerometers, and then enhancing it with Dead Reckoning and triangulated algorithms. We will show the capabilities differences in both the Operating Systems and the hardware of the three most popular mobile platforms, iPhone, Androids, and Window Phone7. In the process,we will show our concept of building app using HWIO and VIO software stack that will allow standardizing of screen level app development. We will also show the mobile device ability to log position data and serve the data to the backend server. Lastly, we will look into battery usage and how the apps can be run on continuous basis without draining its battery to the point of becoming impractical. With this goal in mind, we set the following technical objectives: Objectives: 1. Demonstrate the mobile device ability to capture positioning data and its accuracy using onboard GPS and accelerometers, 2. Demonstrate mobile devices enhanced positioning accuracy with dead reckoning and triangulated algorithm, 3. Demonstrate differences capabilities between iPhone, Android, and Window Phone 7, 4. Demonstrate that HWIO and VIO software stack architecture can be used to enhance and control screen level app development, 5. Demonstrate data gathering and reporting between mobile devices and backend server, 6. Demonstrate how positioning app can be used without draining mobile device battery to the point of impractical usage.