tower1.gifMy post today about the XM Radio capabilities of Bushnell’s GPS handheld, that delivers weather information based upon your location, has me thinking about smart radios. There’s an active community of researchers that are working on software defined radio (SDR) or cognitive radio capabilities, with strong ties to the emergency response community and location.

This year’s Smart Radio Challenge just took place in Denver. At this challenge teams made up of engineering students compete to solve problems. Several of the problems that faced this year’s competitors revolved around finding available spectrum for first responders and solving communications interoperability between various emergency responders. Another dealt with traffic management and use of radio signals to determine location:

PROBLEM: Develop a smart radio system that can, using available spectrum, accurately detect the location of many vehicles within the city and assess the velocity along common roadways. The system will then provide user-specific route guidance from starting point to ending point which will minimize total fuel consumption. The system must be future proof, to allow new features and capabilities to be added over an expected 10-year life span of the vehicle without requiring a visit to the dealer.

With all the focus on GPS technologies for location services, the relatively low-tech, but low-cost option of radio signal triangulation for location is often overlooked. I’m intrigued by the possibilities of combining radio communication with location, and using radio for location determination.

It will be interesting to see if automakers follow Bushnell’s path of tying XM Radio to location.

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