Fleetnet is a project that is funded by the German Bundesministerimum für Bildung und Forschung BMBF and an industrial consortium. The main aim of FleetNet is to develop technologies for the direct and cost effective  communication between vehicles (e.g. cars and trucks).  To this end vehicles will be integrated into the Internet by letting them actively relay, forward and route Internet datapackets. Vehicles will therefore be considered mobile Internet nodes.  This will enable innovative and challenging applications that require the communication between vehicles. FleetNet will also support applications that increase the overall safety of the passengers.

Whithin this project ad-hoc communication systems and protocols will be developed which enable the communication between two or more vehicles and between a vehicle and the remainder of the Internet. From the start on FleetNet will be oriented towards future product development and deployment. The usability of the FleetNet services is expected to be prooved by a working real-world demonstrator which includes appropriate examples for services and applications enabled by the FleetNet infrastructure.

The technology developed in FleetNet will be made available to a broad audience by participation in standardization processes (e.g. IETF, IEEE, etc.).
 
 

The "Lehrstuhl Praktische Informatik IV" at the University of Mannheim is subcontractor of NEC. All work will be conducted in close cooperation with the NEC Computer & Communication Research Laboratories Heidelberg.

The main focus of the FleetNet work conducted at the University of Mannheim will be on ad-hoc routing between vehicles. Challenges will include the usage of position, heading and velocity information to overcome the problem of a rapidly changing topology. It is expected that this work will include participation in the relevant IETF workgroups, such as manet and mobileip. Representatives of the University of Mannheim will attend the regular IETF meetings to enhance this cooperation.

Work on FleetNet is sheduled to start for the University of Mannheim early 2001 and will continue at least until the end of 2003.

For further information about FleetNet at the University of Mannheim, please contact Holger Füßler.