Low Cost C-ITS Stations Using Raspberry Pi and the Open Source Software OScar
L. Farina, M. Piccoli, S. Iandolo, A. Solida, C. A. Grazia, F. Raviglione, C. Casetti, A. Bazzi
TL;DR
The paper addresses the need for affordable, scalable field-testing hardware for C-ITS validation, where high device costs have hindered expansive testbeds. It introduces a low-cost OBU/RSU platform built around a Raspberry Pi 5 and the Open Source OScar ETSI C-ITS stack, costing about €200 per device. Experimental results show a measurable CPU load (~25% for reception and ~25% for CAM generation), modest RAM impact, and a temperature rise to ~80°C during transmission, along with spectrum compliance to ETSI masks, a near-linear power response, and field-range performance of ~560 m LOS and ~70 m NLOS. Overall, the platform enables scalable, practical testing of CAV networks and applications, bridging simulations and market-ready deployments into open, low-cost testbeds.
Abstract
The deployment of cooperative-intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) has started, and standardization and research activities are moving forward to improve road safety and vehicular efficiency. An aspect that is still felt as a limitation by the research groups active in the field, is the difficulty to validate the solutions with real hardware and software, because of the huge investments that are needed when multiple equipped vehicles need to be considered. In this work, we present a platform with low-cost hardware based on a Raspberry Pi and a Wi-Fi module transmitting at 5.9 GHz, and on the open-source software Open Stack for Car (OScar), which is compliant with the ETSI C-ITS standards. With a limited cost in the order of 200 EUR, the platform realizes a device which is standard compliant and can be used as either on-board unit (OBU) or road side unit (RSU). The limited cost makes the testbed scalable to several units with limited budget and the limited size makes it also deployable on mini-cars to test advanced connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) networks and applications. Our tests demonstrate its interoperability with other devices, compliance in terms of power spectrum, and a range of a few hundred meters in line-of-sight (LOS) conditions using the standard settings of ITS-G5.