ERTICO – ITS Europe and ETSI’s Centre for Testing and Interoperability (CTI) are organising the first eCall Interoperability event which is taking place from 22 to 24 May 2012 in Nuneaton UK.
This blog is intended to share the general proceedings of this eCall interoperability event in a dynamic way. So don’t hesitate to leave your comment/questions below or on Twitter (@ERTICO and #eCallIT12).
Thursday 24 May 2012
Outcomes of the first eCall interoperability event
Almost all results have now been gathered and the organising team is very pleased to confirm that the units tested have shown very high level of interoperability. Participants and experts confirm that these results are extremely satisfying for a first interoperability event and that they show the maturity of the implementations.
About innovITS ADVANCE
ERTICO partner innovITS ADVANCE has been the host of this first eCall interoperability event.
With its extensive road layout configurable to represent virtually any urban environment and its comprehensive telecoms infrastructure including a private GSM network GNSS attenuation and denial capability and Wi-FI mesh innovITS ADVANCE is ideally suited to the testing development and certification of new ITS technologies such as eCall.
Entering the home straight…
The event will soon finish but testing is still on-going.
ERTICO and ETSI are already thanking innovITS ADVANCE for hosting the event and all participants for joining this successful event!
Description of the tests
28 tests cases have been prepared by a team of experts led by ETSI and have later on been discussed together with all participants. The participants depending on their unit implementations have then to follow 7 mandatory tests and may perform some of the optional tests if they wish to do so. The tests are covering the different phases of the transmission of an eCall and the outcome of a test can either be “passed” or “not passed”. It is important to note that the participants have only access to the results of a test session (i.e. a PSAP unit and an IVS unit going through the mandatory tests and some optional tests) they have participated to.
The 7 mandatory tests are the following:
1. MSD transmission / reception / acknowledgement
2. Voice communication after receipt of AL-ACK
3. Retransmission of MSD on request from PSAP
4. Voice communication after retransmission of MSD
5. Clear down / PSAP initiated network clear down
6. Clear down / PSAP initiated application layer AL-ACK clear down
7. Call back / PSAP initiated call back to IVS
The objective of thoses test is to verify the interoperability between the IVS PLMN and PSAP.
Then a list of 21 optional tests has been defined to verify the behaviour of the IVS and PSAP individually in accordance with the ETSI and CEN specifications and may be used to help identify the cause of interoperability failures.
Final day and new test sessions
Final day of this eCall interoperability testing and still some test sessions to perform.
Qualcomm testing with Cinterion. 
Picosoft testing with Telit. 
Sagemcom testing with SIMCom. 
Wednesday 23 May 2012
The wrap-up session
After one and half days of testing the organisers gathered the participants for a wrap-up session. Without disclosing the results of specific test sessions the objective at that moment was to discuss issues or difficulties which may have been identified during the first tests. The expert group mandated by ETSI has contributed actively to that discussion to highlight which part of the standards was questionned and whether there might be a need for clarification.
In the mean time at innovITS…
Ice-cream break between two test sessions.
HeERO partners test interoperability
A full test session has been carried out between Oecon (PSAP supplier active in the German HeERO pilot) and Civitronic (supplier of the IVS for the Romanian HeERO pilot). The tests have shown positive outcomes which is to be understood as a very important milestone for the EU co-funded HeERO project.
Oecon and Civitronic performing interoperability tests.
HeERO coordinated by ERTICO – ITS Europe is the coordinating body for the implementation of eCall in 9 Member State pilot sites by ensuring that the services implemented are interoperable. HeERO is therefore actively supporting this interoperability testing event.
More information on HeERO available here: http://www.heero-pilot.eu
Architecture of the test bed
Some more technical details about the tests that the participants are performing here. Each test session consists of pairing an IVS unit with a PSAP unit. They are connected using the following configuration:
The calls are carried by the private GSM network. Below is shown the test bed architecture using the innovITS ADVANCE facilities. Whilst the IVS connection to the network is quite straightforward the PSAP units may connect either directly over GSM through a SIP trunk or through a SIP trunk with a media gateway as shown below:
The innovITS ADVANCE GSM network (one of the three antennae + BSC – MSC) in practice:
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Welcome of the participants and set-up
Today is testing day! Most of the participants have arrived at the testing marquee set up by innovITS Advance. It lies right in the middle of the large MIRA test tracks. This rather idyllic location (the sun is shining!) is being used in order to get the best coverage from the private GSM network.
The organising team introduced participants to the facilities and gave the final instructions before the official start of the test sessions. Participants have now finalised the installation of their units and the network connections.
From left to right: Laurent Velez (ETSI) Catherine Ferris (innovITS) Peter Vermaat (TRL) Karen Hughes (ETSI) and John Watson (Airbiquity).
Monday 21 May 2012
Opening of the eCall interoperability event live blog
From tomorrow on innovITS Advance will host three days of eCall interoperability testing at their facilities in Nuneaton. Several companies – vendors of In-Vehicle Systems (IVS) and/or Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) systems – are expected to participate in the event co-organised by ERTICO – ITS Europe and ETSI – Center for Testing and Interoperability. It is supported by the European Commission and the EU co-funded project HeERO.
The objective of these three days is to provide a realistic environment for the vendors to test their implementations with each others: IVS vendors will be able to test the interoperability of their product with the different PSAP implementations and vice-versa. Following several tests covering realistic scenarios participants will monitor the behaviour of their products in the different phases of the transmission of an eCall and assess whether it worked properly or not.
The tests will be performed over the innovITS ADVANCE GSM/3G private network allowing IVS units to make 112 based eCall to the PSAP.
Link to original Article
http://www.ertico.com/1st-ecall-interoperability-testing-event-follow-it-live/
Original Publication Date: Fri 18 May 2012
