supported by the Vodafone Group Foundation
The Nottingham Trent University
Computing and Mathematics
Prof. Andrzej Bargiela
Prof. Masahiro Tanaka
Information Science and Systems Engineering, Konan University, Japan
The purpose of this visit is to explore the convergence of mobile communicatioin applications in UK and Japan from the basis of a successful Advanced Traffic and Travel Information System (ATTAIN) developed at the Nottingham Trent University.
Current ATTAIN system uses SMS text messaging as an asynchronous information dissemination channel. This choice has been largely dictated by the desire to achieve the widest possible diffusion of the ATTAIN service without being constrained by the technical capabilities of the handsets.
By contrast in Japan there is a widespread use of Internet-based mobile applications. This trend is certainly to be followed in the UK. Having identified common background in soft computing, optimisation and signal processing between our respective research labs we have embarked on an intensive programme of research collaboration over the last 18 months. This collaboration resultes in 5 research publications (including 1 IEEE Transactions paper), 2 research visits of Prof. Tanaka to Nottingham and 1 research visit of Prof. Bargiela to Kobe.
We have now established a secure access from the visitor's laboratory to real-time traffic monitoring cameras in Nottingham. Based on that the nominee is currently developing an Internet-based application for dissemination of information on traffic conditions to Internet enabled mobile phones that can display images.
The visit of Prof. Tanaka to NTU will focus on identifying the best ways of merging the ATTAIN system technology with the image processing and the video feedback generation developed by the nominee.
We envisage the development process in the following stages.
1. Image acquisition
In our software development, we have been using the images shown at the site of Nottngham TravelWise Centre
2. Image processing
(1) Compute temporary difference image
(2) Detection of moving cars
Detected cars (black bars)
3. Information dissemination method
White squares indicate the camera sites.
The traffic conditions are displayed by the colour for each direction.
This information is designed to be provided for mobile phones.