Electronically speaking, cars and other vehicles aren't just networks on wheels—they're networks of networks. The networks' signal buses on the more advanced cars carry drive-by-wire control signals from the pedals and steering wheels to the engine, transmission, and other systems. Other networks keep these systems in touch with one another and with the vehicle. Additional networks carry information and entertainment to the driver and the passengers.

But these internal networks were preceded by external links such as land mobile radio and mobile phones. Other newer external links are proliferating, including receivers for GPS navigation satellites and for satellite radio services that also carry traffic, weather, and emergency alerts. And cellular phones let the car summon emergency aid when the driver can't. Soon, cars may have links for talking directly to each other, warning of traffic delays, hazards, and bad weather on the road ahead. 

"Disasters like Hurricane Katrina have brought new attention to the need for interoperability, to allow communications between emergency responders," says Senior Member George McClure, treasurer of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society.

The 64th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, to be held 25 to 28 September in Montreal, will concentrate primarily on external communication. Of the 643 papers accepted for the conference, which is sponsored by the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, all but a handful are communications-related. More than half of them are from outside North America. The topics to be covered include advances in radio technology, radio propagation, multiple antenna systems, radio access, and resource management and transceiver technologies. Papers on mobile communication include modeling and simulation of mobile wireless systems and mobile wireless networks. There also will be a discussion on satellite systems navigation and positioning, electromagnetic compatibility issues on circuits and devices, and next-generation services. Topics outside the communications field will include vehicle routing, tire-pressure and collision-avoidance warning systems, intelligent transportation systems, and systems that anticipate curves in the road.

AN IRE GROUP  All these subjects reflect the history of the society, which was originally the Institute of Radio Engineer's Professional Group on Vehicular Communications. It became the Vehicular Technology Society when IRE and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers merged in 1963 to form the IEEE. The VTS, which later absorbed the IEEE groups on land transportation (mostly rail) and on automotive electronics, now has 5500 members and chapters in 15 countries.

"More than 80 percent of our members are in the communications arena," says McClure,  "a relatively small number on the automotive-technology side. But communications is where the growth has been, with cellular wireless and all of the add-ons to that. Obviously, that's led to a tremendous interest in increasing channel capacity and reducing interference." That interest led to theupcoming  VTC's motto, "Embracing Diversity," at which many of the papers dealt with MIMO (multiple-input/multiple-output) and other diversity reception and transmission technologies.

The Vehicular Technology Conference was held annually from 1950 to 1998. Since 1999 it has been held twice a year, usually drawing about 600 to 700 attendees. The Montreal conference's first day will include eight tutorials, on broadband ("The third wireless revolution, after cellphones and Wi-Fi," writes presenter Benny Bing, of Georgia Institute of Technology), diversity (temporal, frequency, and spatial), OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), and other aspects of communications technology and network architecture. The technical papers from the conference will be given to all registered attendees on a CD  and will eventually be available via IEEE Xplore (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org). The CD is also available to society members who do not attend, at a discounted. The VTS publishes VTS Magazine, a quarterly, and Transactions on Vehicular Technology, a bimonthly.

For more information about the society, visit http://www.vtsociety.org