The transport sector is commonly subordinate to several issues, such as traffic congestion and accidents. Despite this, in recent years, it is also evolving with regard to cooperation between vehicles. The fundamental objective of this trend is to increase road safety, attempting to anticipate the circumstances of potential danger. Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technologies strive to give communication models that can be employed by vehicles in different application contexts. The resulting infrastructure is an ad-hoc mesh network whose nodes are not only vehicles but also all mobile devices equipped with wireless modules. The interaction between the multiple connected entities consists of information exchange through the adoption of suitable communication protocols. The main aim of the review carried out in this paper is to examine and assess the most relevant systems, applications, and communication protocols that will distinguish the future road infrastructures used by vehicles. The results of the investigation reveal the real benefits that technological cooperation can involve in road safety.

Road safety is an active area of research for the automotive industry, and certainly one of ongoing interest to governments around the world. The intelligent transportation system (ITS) is one of several viable solutions with which to improve road safety, where the communication medium (e.g., among vehicles and between vehicles and the other components in an ITS environment, such as roadside infrastructure) is typically wireless. A typical communication standard adopted by car manufacturers is IEEE 802.11p for communications. Thus, this paper presents an overview of IEEE 802.11p, with a particular focus on its adoption in an ITS setting. Specifically, we analyze both MAC and PHY layers in a dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) environment.

Modern society is increasingly permeated by realities parallel to the real one. The so-called virtual reality is now part of both current habits and many activities carried out during the day. Virtual reality (VR) is, in turn, related to the concept of augmented reality (AR). It represents a technology still in solid expansion but which was created and imagined several decades ago. This paper presents an overview of augmented reality, starting from its conception, passing through its main applications, and providing essential information. Part of the article will be devoted to hardware and software components used in AR systems. The last part of the paper highlights the limitations related to the design of these systems, the shortcomings in this area, and the possible future fields of application of this extraordinary technological innovation.

Big data represents one of the most profound and most pervasive evolutions in the digital world. Examples of big data come from Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as well as smart cars, but also the use of social networks, industries, and so on. The sources of data are numerous and continuously increasing, and, therefore, what characterizes big data is not only the volume but also the complexity due to the heterogeneity of information that can be obtained. The fastest growth in spending on big data technologies is happening within banking, healthcare, insurance, securities and investment services, and telecommunications. Remarkably, three of those industries lie within the financial sector, which has many particularly serviceable use cases for big data analytics, such as fraud detection, risk management, and customer service optimization. In fact, the definition of big data analysis refers to the process that encompasses the gathering and analysis of big data to obtain useful information for the business. This paper focuses on delivering a short review concerning the current technologies, future perspectives, and the evaluation of some use cased associated with the analysis of big data.

This paper presents an in-depth overview of the Bluetooth 5.1 Direction Finding standard’s potentials, thanks to enhancing the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) firmware. This improvement allows producers to create location applications based on the Angle of Departure (AoD) and the Angle of Arrival (AoA). Accordingly, it is conceivable to design proper Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS), for instance, for the traceability of resources, assets, and people. First of all, Radio Frequency (RF) radiogoniometry techniques, helpful in calculating AoA and AoD angles, are introduced in this paper. Subsequently, the topic relating to signal direction estimation is deepened. The Bluetooth Core Specification updates concerning version 5.1, both at the packet architecture and prototyping levels, are also reported. Some suitable platforms and development kits for running the new features are then presented, and some basic applications are illustrated. This paper’s final part allows ascertaining the improvement made by this new definition of BLE and possible future developments, especially concerning applications related to devices, assets, or people’s indoor localization. Some preliminary results gathered in a real evaluation scenario are also presented.