GreenBikeNet: an Intelligent Mobile Application with Green Wireless Networking for Cycling in Smart Cities

In this paper, we introduce a mobile application with intelligent systems to provide services for cyclists and enhance their cycling experiences in smart cities. The application utilizes smartphones and low-power ZigBee technology for ad-hoc networking. Since ZigBee chipsets have not been included yet in recent smartphones, we develop a Smartphone-ZigBee embedded system that we use in building a mobile application for low-power low-bandwidth wireless ad-hoc networking with acceptable ranges. Cyclists can join either public networks or create their own private networks to exchange information and utilize several developed services. For voice communication between cyclists, we develop a multilingual voice communication system with an innovative smart spectrum and energy management approach. A sender cyclist can speak in his own language while being translated and heard in a clear voice by the receiver cyclist in another language with an acceptable delay less than 1 s. We also develop an intelligent geo-localization system that utilizes smartphone’s GPS receiver to provide real-time geo-locations and speeds of all cyclists connected to the same network on a visual interactive map. The latter system adaptively manages the number of visits to the GPS receiver according to various system parameters to reduce power consumption. Moreover, we develop an emergency system that provides a platform for efficient collaboration between cyclists in emergency conditions. To ensure safety of cyclists, all our services are accessed vocally. Furthermore, we provide an energy harvesting system using the movement of the bike for power generation.