Millimeter Wave Technology in ITS

A summary will be given of some of the work carried out in Europe in recent years on millimetric communications for transport telematics. The benefits of the frequency band around 60 GHz will be described, along with examples of how the the technical challenges have been met. ITS applications which will benefit most from millimetric data links will be summarized, and examples will be given of inter-vehicle and road-to-vehicle communication systems. These will cover both the short-range, information hot-spot aspects, and longer range systems. Results will be described of a the recently completed UK project MILTRANS which demonstrated a high data rate, networkable data link operating in the 63 to 64 GHz band in a road environment. Information will be provided on the ITS standardization activities in Europe in the millimeter band