Bringing cars to the Internet of Things

In 2019, as part of the The Trusted IoT Alliance (TIoTA)’s Smart E-Mobility Challenge, TX and Streamr partnered with Bosch Software Innovations and Riddle & Code, on a pilot project that gathered a range of electric vehicle data and shared it openly in real-time.

The team connected a prototype Bosch ALEN gateway to a Jaguar I-PACE electric vehicle via its CAN bus. A mobile router added connectivity, and enabled a Streamr node running on a Raspberry Pi to route the realtime data to a product on the Streamr Marketplace. Riddle & Code’s hardware wallet could digitally sign the data, providing a unique identity for the vehicle.

With cars providing data about their environment as part of the Internet of Cars, those responsible for maintaining road networks can make better decisions on infrastructure investment, drivers can be better informed on how to avoid accidents and reduce journey times, and that data can be traded by car manufacturers, insurance companies and between other machines to ensure the broadest participation in a genuinely open real-time data economy.

In this use case, aggregated car data can be sold on Streamr’s Marketplace via a Data Union. Highway agencies, smart cities, car manufacturers, insurance companies and other drivers could enjoy easy data extraction from car sensors via API feeds. Data buyers can also deploy autonomous economic agents that can subscribe and make decisions in real-time, such as changing speed limits, messaging other drivers or setting up diversions. Cars can also measure valuable data unrelated to driving, such as local pollen levels.