272 | SMART MOBILITY
Driving fleets in the cloud Powerful new processing software is enabling bus operators to provide a greatly improved service Words | Zeljko Loncaric, Congatec, Germany
Public transport operators want to monitor and manage their fleets in real time to optimize service quality, reduce costs and improve security. To achieve this it is necessary to get all relevant information – including video surveillance– from the vehicles into the cloud in real time. Stable connectivity and high bandwidth are required, as well as a computing platform that is reliable and can be tailored. Most modern cities and urban areas provide at least 3G with up to 7.2Mbps or even Long Term Evolution (LTE) with up to 3.9Gbs mobile bandwidth. This is sufficient to stream even high-bandwidth data from multiple surveillance cameras to the cloud. The major challenge lies in tailoring the fleet application’s setup and providing a powerful edge-computing platform that can host all required services so that operators can freely choose from a wide range of services, as well as variable configurations within these. Datik, a Spanish provider of cloud-based public transport solutions, chose a modular approach for its fleet services design as well as the underlying hardware platform
Intertraffic World | Annual Showcase 2018
that handles all the computation and communication in its buses. Operators can pick the services they need. For punctuality tracking, arrival times can be displayed on the driver console and accessed via the management cloud, and also on screens in the vehicles and at bus stops. An additional app for iOS and Android can round off the service offerings for conductors and passengers, with flexible display and video camera configurations for up to four infrared cameras possible as well. To address all these needs with only one low-power and rugged edge-computing platform design, Datik was looking for a RISC-based (reduced instruction set computer) architecture capable of the easiest engine switching. The company found it in computer-on-modules (COMs) based on the Qseven form factor. COMs are standardized computing cores for customized systems. The benefits are not only a reduced bill but also massive time and cost savings compared with full custom designs. They come with an application-ready board support package and often with a
printed circuit board and interface layout samples for the custom carrier board that only need to be adapted to the application. This enables OEMs to take advantage of the customization capabilities of a full custom design paired with the fast time to market and cost efficiency of COTS solutions.
Scalability and longevity The modularity of COMs brings high scalability and longevity to a solution because they can easily be exchanged, regardless of the module and processor vendors. This makes COMs more attractive to designers of RISC- or ARM-based (advanced RISC machine) platforms than proprietary modules or processor-specific evaluation platforms. COMs also reduce effort through the life of the system, as connected devices need constant updates. To power its platform, Datik chose Conga-QMX6 Qseven modules with NXP i.MX6 processors. The ARM Cortex 9-based processor family offers broad scalability with single-, dual- and quad-core options. The processors further provide high computing capabilities combined with a powerful graphics solution for multiple displays, and integrate a hardware-based video decoding/ encoding engine, important for video
