Vehicle telematics platform

Project (M.S., Computer Science)--California State University, Sacramento, 2012.Telematics combines communications and information technology to provide location, mapping, traffic, weather, entertainment and internet connectivity to motor vehicles. Similar to the recent developments in smart phones, the advancement in cellular infrastructure and cutting edge electronics has made the concept of a connected car a reality. The requirements for such systems however, are increasingly complex and costly. Manufacturers can no longer be dependent on proprietary designs to drive market differentiation and deliver successful products. Mission critical systems in motor vehicles require a well-established, tested and proven framework in order to ensure safety and reliability [3]. \ud The advent of many open source software and hardware solutions on the market has enabled the possibility of leveraging off of proven robust solutions that can be applied to automotive designs. One such solution is the choice of real time operating systems. Companies can use Linux distributions optimized for real time performance in order to reach timing requirements for a particular solution. In addition, cross-platform frameworks like GStreamer, VideoLAN, and GPAC exist for audio and multimedia services within a motor vehicle. \ud From a hardware perspective, companies like Gumstix offer reference designs of development boards consisting of all peripherals required to prototype solutions. The specifications of these designs are provided so that customized hardware can be designed with any additional interfacing to external peripherals such as the CAN (Controller Area Network) bus and engine control modules added.\ud This Master???s project report describes my implementation of a vehicle entertainment component for a telematics system using open and proven industry standards. The design and implementation of a prototype is discussed in detail with results and future work discussed for future researchers to further build on the prototype.Computer Scienc