This is my first time actually posting here so excuse me if I may be a bit of a neophyte. I also haven't had much experience with Arduino in general either, but I think its the way to go for my project and was wondering on feasibility from some experts before I dive in.
I have a project in which I plan on creating to aid in the safety of vehicles. I am using the DSRC protocol outlined in the 802.11p standard as well as Xbees running DigiMesh. The DSRC protocol itself is built around 802.11a with just a few modifications to the MAC layer and channel bandwidth.
The questions
Having little luck finding a reasonable "DSRC module/radio", could I make the protocol modifications on the Arduino itself using just a regular 5GHz radio?
The reason I mention this is because the DSRC vendors are charging an arm and a leg for their Onboard Units/modules. They also have their vendor proprietary platform that I would have to work with.
Is there a better way to go into this project without Arduino?
Basically, the end goal of the project is to be able to create infrastructure-less dual protocol (DigiMesh & DSRC) mesh networks and have them communicate various amounts of data from sensors. For DigiMesh, I have seen some Arduino libraries and already have the Xbee Radios. Have no clue how to incorporate the DSRC part.
Thank you in advance, please ask me any questions if something needs to be clarified.
The relevant parts of the protocol are probably handled on the radio unit (though there may be alternate firmware for some applicable radios) - you may well be stuck with an expensive radio unit.
I am not necessarily wedded to DSRC for my project, although providing a cheap alternative would be really useful to drive costs down. Since the project is also vehicular oriented, I wanted to get my hands on the use of DSRC.
I am also interested in DSRC, as it will be the standard radio module used in autonomous vehicles. One of the nice features of DSRC radio module is that it can be connected to the OBD-II port of a vehicle for communication. Therefore a DSRC module will be much more useful than using any other radio device such as ZigBee.
Even after getting an EVAL BOARD there is still a lot work needs to be done to use a DSRC radio module, and it would nice if someone with the proper experience would start putting a library together for DSRC communication.
It is definitely beyond my experience to start from scratch.