Vehicle Location/Checkpoint Logger

Student: Edward Stanley Eeson

Supervisor: Dr. Adam Postula

Category: Computer Systems Engineering Thesis Project

Upon entering the 21st century, wireless facilities for personal and commercial applications are becoming more desirable and, thanks to advances in wireless technology, also more attainable. Bluetooth is a wireless communication standard aimed at removing the need for cables between a wide range of electronic devices such as PCs, PDAs, and mobile phones. It was the objective of this thesis to develop the hardware and software for an application using the Bluetooth standard. The application was to aimed at establishing wireless connections between fixed and mobile (vehicular) modules to allow the exchange of data specific to the vehicles’ objective. It was speculated that this application could be used in tracking, shipping and security industries where vehicles equipped with the mobile modules could interface with fixed waystations to exchange required data and process needed transactions.

The hardware component of a Bluetooth application is required to handle the lower layers of the BT protocol stack. After much research it was determined the Ericsson Starter Kits provided by iLab would be required as the cost of BT hardware is currently quite high. The software component of the application was written in the Microsoft Visual C++ development environment. After strenuous attempts at using the freeware Cstack Bluetooth protocol stack, it was decided the problems associated with using this stack were too great and so the Ericsson reference stack was used instead.

The completed application consisted of a client (vehicle) program, a server (waystation) program and a connection manager. It was able to establish links and send data that had been formatted to facilitate security and delivery service applications.

Poster Presentation (PDF)

Thesis Document (PDF)