Draft PnP Traffic
Signal Meeting Notes
The notes below reflect the discussion during the University of Idaho October 13th, 2005 PnP Traffic signals Meeting.
I. Welcome, Introduction and Vision (Wall)
a. Motivation – potential benefits
i. Reduce cost - fewer
ii. Increase bandwidth
iii. Improve scalability
iv. Increase capability – new sensors, dynamic signage
b. Challenges – Pandora’s Box
i. Conflict monitoring (CM)
ii. System time response for actuated signals
iii. Network wide safe – fail operation
II. Concerns of implement new technology (Urbanik, Bullock, and Duncan)
a. Maintainable
i. Education and tools of current technical support insufficient to maintain network based systems
b. Installable
i. Skill level of contractors is limited to industrial wiring
ii. New installations vs. upgrades
c. Liability
i. Can the reliability be proven in a court of law
ii. Requires documented performance
d. Technical challenges
i. Silicon in the middle of the intersection: environmental, electrical transients
ii. Concepts of a vital circuit
III. Status Report on PnP DSN (Huska)
a. See attached presentation Huska.pdf
b. Key points
i. Present network uses processors too slow to make effective use of available Ethernet band width
ii. PnP a viable concept – uses want it, experience shows that competition gives customer confidence in innovations. (Customers feel at risk if product has only one source.)
IV. Network Security (Oman)
a. See attached presentation Oman.pdf
b. Key points
i. Security threats – growing exponentially
ii. Network vulnerability is way down on list of risks that is topped by natural disasters, human error.
iii. Off the shelf tools available today are adequate – if used.
V. Human Factors (Werner)
a. See attached presentation Werner.pdf
b. Key points
i. Dynamic signals – bad idea … don’t mess with expected operations
ii. Redundant information embedded in current signals
VI. Previous effort in Networks for Traffic Signals (Bullock)
a. See attached slides Bullock.pdf
b. Key points
i. Simple demonstration using power line carrier (PLC)
ii. Echelon based system – bad karma with LonWorks
iii. Arrogant are the young
VII. Safety Critical Network Designs (Ridge)
a. See attached presentation Ridge.pdf
b. Key points
i. Critical Safety systems – fly-by-wire and drive-by-wire
ii. Redundant systems
iii. Heartbeat signal
iv. FCU’s
v. Redundant internet hardware connections – single IP address
VIII. Direction for Research (Group)
a. Senior Design Project
i. Focus on countdown pedestrian signal
1. See block diagram in Figure 1
2. Demonstrate that improved performance with side-by-side comparison of new vs. existing count-down ped signal
3. Use SNTP messages to get data from Econolite ASC-3 Controller
a. Darcy figured this out during Mike’s meeting the following day.
b. Mike didn’t provide adequate snacks at his meeting so Darcy was distracted.
b. PnP Traffic signals
i. PnP has value
ii. Use network along side of existing signal controls
1. Improved sensor data
2. Additional fault sensing
3. Avoids issues concerning CM
IX. Conclusions (Wall)
Attendance:
|
Name |
Affiliation |
|
Phone |
|
Ahmed Abdel-Rahim |
UI – NIATT (Civil Engr) |
(208) 885-2975 |
|
|
Steffen Werner |
UI Dept. of Psychology |
(208) 885-9241 |
|
|
Brian Johnson |
UI Dept. of ECE |
(208) 885-6902 |
|
|
Richard Wall |
UI Dept. of ECE |
(208) 885-7226 |
|
|
Paul Oman |
UI Dept. of Computer Science |
(208) 885-6899 |
|
|
Darcy Bullock |
Purdue U |
(765) 494-2226 |
|
|
Tom Urbanik |
U of Tennessee |
(865) 974-7709 |
|
|
Gary Duncan |
Econolite Traffic Signala |
|
|
|
Mike Dixon |
UI – NIATT (Civil Engr) |
(208) 885-4338 |
|
|
Andrew Huska |
UI ECE graduate student |
|
|
|
Kelly Ridge |
UI ECE undergraduate student |
|
|
|
Steve Allen |
UI ECE undergraduate student |
|
|
|
Ty Rallens |
UI ECE undergraduate student |
|
|
|
Michael Busby |
UI ECE undergraduate student |
|
Figure 1. Concept map of senior design project