Bluetooth is a wireless communication standard that has been adopted in many consumer electronic products (e.g. cell phones) to enable direct wireless communications between paired devices. 

In recent years, Bluetooth detectors have been widely considered as an efficient and straightforward tool for measuring travel time and average travel speed both on freeways and arterials.

 

However, there is a need for development of a simulation software that can simulate Bluetooth detectors. In this project, a simulation software is developed to model the detection of Bluetooth detection. This software, Blue Synthesizer, utilizes VISSIM micro-simulation model for simulation of signal control and traffic conditions. This software has two modes of execution. The offline mode, can get the output trajectory of simulation as an input and generate Bluetooth hits and detection records similar to what happens in reality. The online mode of this software is capable of calculating traffic measurements, simulating Bluetooth detectors and Bluetooth enabled vehicles, and implementing traffic signal control strategies while the VISSIM simulation is running. This will enable us to verify the performance of ATMS in variety of traffic conditions.

 

Based on the level of market penetration, a subset of vehicles in the simulation is marked as Bluetooth enabled vehicles. At each scanning interval of each Bluetooth enabled device (i.e. 1.28 seconds), the location of individual Bluetooth enabled vehicle is extracted from the simulation. Using the location-based probability of detection, for each Bluetooth enabled vehicle in the detection zone of detectors we determine whether the vehicle is detected (Bluetooth hits). As a result, the location and time of each hit for the vehicles are recorded. We also record the times at which each vehicle entered the detection zone of each detector, passes the sensor, and exited the detection zone. Moreover, the location and time of the first and last Bluetooth detection is recorded. In order to simulate the direction finding Bluetooth detectors, the direction of movement is also recorded.

 

Please use the following tuterials for more information regarding the input and output requirement of the program:

 

This program is developed in University of Waterloo by Amir Zarinbal under supervision of Prof. Hellinga.

 

The following Figure shows a screen shot of developed software and the output of the system: