Cars will become personalised communication devices – EU project DAIDALOS

When Bart Watson leaves home to go on a business trip, his personal communication services will accompany him. The e-mails he studied on his PC at home will also be available on the terminal in his car, where they are read to him by his handheld device while he drives. This seamless handover from broadband internet connection at home to DVB-T connection in the car is one of the research results by EU project DAIDALOS, which will be demonstrated at a public workshop in Stuttgart on 14 December.

DAIDALOS will fundamentally improve the usability of European telecommunication technologies by integrating mobile network and broadcast communications in order to deliver personalised and pervasive end-to-end services across heterogeneous technologies. The project has verified the feasibility of its theoretical results in two user scenarios: the DAIDALOS Mobile University scenario and the DAIDALOS Automobile scenario. The DAIDALOS workshop in Stuttgart will present components and prototypes that have been developed within the first 12 months of the project.

Among the technical demonstrations is the seamless use of a personalised communication service, like e-mail or digital video, while moving from fixed-line internet in the exhibition space at Stuttgart university to mobile broadcasting via DVB-T in a car parked in front of the building. One of the project partners is the BMW Group Research and Technology, which will provide a specially equipped limousine in order to demonstrate this scenario.

Hans-Jörg Vögel, the responsible for this demonstration, said: “Cars will communicate with ad-hoc sensors on the road in order to receive warnings concerning road conditions, and they will broadcast warning messages, thus significantly reducing traffic accidents.”

Riccardo Pascotto, DAIDALOS project coordinator from Deutsche Telekom, added: “Future communication services will be seamless and smoothly integrated in our daily lives. The interaction between humans, communication terminals, cars, and related infrastructures will become more natural and intuitive.”