Presentation held at Ministère des Transports du Québec with several partners to evaluate potential for collaboration on ITS projects

1. Digital Broadcasting and ITS
François Lefebvre
Communications Research Centre, Canada
Collaboration Meeting at MTQ
July 22, 2010, Montréal
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2. 6 Messages
 1. CRC is expert in Digital Broadcasting ...
 2. DB is key network component for converged ITS services
 3. Various DB options in the Canadian context
 4. Many DB applications for ITS
 5. Many DB standards for ITS
 6. CRC open platforms and tools
 ITS Collaboration
 Project Idea
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3. 1.
CRC: Expert in digital
broadcasting...
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4. Various Fields of Broadcasting
 Radio and television technologies
 Systems and applications
 Coverage prediction
 Media coding
 Objective & subjective media evaluation
 3D, HD, mobile TV
 RF transmission and propagation
 Multimedia broadcasting
 Software defined radio
 ...
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5. Various Activities
 Standardisation efforts, national & international
 (DAB, ITU, ATSC, ....)
 Industry support
 Support to IC and other departments
 Research and development
 Prototypes
 Technology transfer
 Contract works
 Collaborations
 Publications, presentations, conferences
 Demonstrations, exhibitions (NAB, IBC, …)
5
 ...

6. 2.
Digital Broadcasting:
Key network component for
converged ITS services
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7. Why Digital ?
 Replacement technologies for AM, FM, NTSC,
 Spectral efficiency
 Digital dividend or more broadcast services
 Energy efficiency
 Better quality of service
 Added value (metadata, ...)
 New services and applications
 Participate in new technology ecosystem
 Competitiveness to new media technologies
 ...
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8. The Broadcast Advantage
Broadcasting = one-to-many
Delivery costs are
independent of audience size
Internet = many-to-many
Delivery costs increase with larger audience
(Internet paradox of popularity)
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9. Hybrid Networking Infrastructure
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10. 3.
Options for the
Canadian Context
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11. International Standards for
Mobile Broadcasting
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12. Digital Broadcast Technologies in Canada
Standard Capacity Capacity Spectrum When ?
Kbps/channel GBytes/day
FM RDS 1 .011 FM Now
DAB ~ 1 500 16 L-Band Before 2010 ?
HD Radio 100 1 FM ?
ATSC ~ 20 000 216 TV August 2011
Mobile ATSC ~ 6 000 65 TV ?
Note: in Canada, it costs $25-$30 to download 500 MB/month with typical 3G data plan.
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13. Broadcast Multiplex
Video
High capacity
channel 1 Audio
2
programs
3
4
5
Pay services Datacasting
Navigation, Trafic, Weather, Maps, etc.
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14. Challenges
 Business models
 “Killer apps” may not be radio or TV
 Broadcasters are not ”datacasters”
 Quality vs quantity
 Regulation limitations
 Vertically integrated ecosystems
 car, smartphone, consumer electronics (gps, ...)
 Ubiquitous Internet
 Intelligent clients vs Cloud services
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15. 4.
Broadcast Applications for ITS
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16. ITS Broadcast Applications
Infrastructure
 Digital signage
 Roadside / public transportation proxies
 Service following, ...
End User
 Entertainment: radio, tv,...
 Navigation: traffic, shortest path, parking, time to dest...
 Intermodal journey planning: bus routes, schedules,
arrivals/departures, …
 Emergency Alerting
 ...
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17. 5.
Broadcast Standards for ITS
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18. Broadcast Standards for ITS
 RT+
 TMC
 TPEG
 MOT Slideshow
 MOT Broadcast Website
 FLUTE file transfer protocol
 ...
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19. RDS RT & RT+
RT
RT+ Title
RT+ Artist
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20. RDS-TMC
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21. TPEG
Founded by EBU in 1997
Current Application
 RTM - Road Traffic Message
 PTI - Public Transport Information
 Loc - Location referencing, used in conjunction with
applications
Under development
 PKI - Parking Information
 CTT - Congestion and Travel-Time
 WEA - Weather information for travellers
 ...
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22. FLUTE
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23. 6.
CRC open platforms and tools
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24. Goal: Foster Application Innovation in DAB
Hardware = generic
Functionality = software
Software collaboration = Free/Libre Open Source

25. DAB Transmitter

27. “One Click” DAB Transmitter
- Free live CD -

28. Openmoko Open Source Phone

29. Extension Openmoko (CRC)
© Openmoko

30. Openmokast Prototype
Open Source DAB on Smartphone

31. Android DAB Application
Openmokast Player Openmokast Player on
on T-Mobile G1 Android Market (MAS)

32. Android FM-RDS Application

33. “Personal” DAB Lab (now with FM-RDS)

34. Wifi Broadcast Dataport
© ISEE

35. Project Idea:
Open Crowdsourced
Road Information.
Database And Applications
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36. Similar to “DASH Navigation”
and Google Model ...
 Connected GPS device and smartphone send car
location/speed data to central database (DASH navigation,
Google, ...)
 Congestion inferred from this data
 Traffic information provided to end-user
© Dash Navigation
“If you use Google Maps for mobile with GPS enabled
on your phone, that’s exactly what you can do. When
you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location,
your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to
Google describing how fast you’re moving. When we
combine your speed with the speed of other phones
on the road, across thousands of phones moving
around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty
good picture of live traffic conditions.”
© Google
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37. Similar to … BUT:
 Public live database: open government data principles
 Open WEB 2.0 API
 Open + free geo database and maps: openstreetmap,
OpenGeo,...
 Android, iPhone, … Apps
 “open / libre” devices
 …
Open Innovation (algorithms, applications, services, ??? )
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38. ITS Collaboration
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39. CRC Could Contribute ...
 Testbed DAB, ATSC (mobile), FM-RDS in Ottawa/Gatineau
 Experimental licenses
 Transmitter (network)
 Specialized facilities
 Broadcast expertise
 Other expertise: Wireless, LTE, Satellite, Broadband, …
 Open source tools and systems
 ...
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40. Thank You!
PRESENTATIONS
www.slideshare.net/tag/crcmmb
www.youtube.com/crcmmb
PROJECTS
www.crc.ca/mmb
mmbTools.crc.ca
openmokast.org
BLOG
Broadcasting20.org
Twitter: @fralef
francois.lefebvre@crc.ca
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