Communication Networks to Connect Moving Vehicles to Transportation Systems to Infrastructure
Communication in transportation systems not only involves the communication inside a vehicle, train, or airplane but it also includes the transfer of data to and from the transportation system or between devices belonging to that system. This will be done using different types of wireless communication. Therefore in this chapter, first, the fundamentals of mobile communication networks are shortly described. Thereafter, possible candidate networks are discussed. Their suitability for a certain transportation system can be evaluated taking into consideration the system's requirements. Among the most prominent are the influence of speed and mobility, data rate and bit error rate constraints, reliability of the system and on-going connections. As in most of the cases, there will be no single best wireless communication network to fulfil all requirements, and in this chapter also hybrid networks are discussed. These are networks consisting of different (wireless) access networks. The devices may use the best suited network for a given situation but also change to another network while continuing the on-going connection or data transfer. Here the design of the handover or relocation plays a critical role as well as localization.