Vehicle-to-anything (V2X) communications refer to information exchange between a vehicle and various elements of the intelligent transportation system (ITS), including other vehicles, pedestrians, ...Internet gateways, and transport infrastructure (such as traffic lights and signs). The technology has a great potential of enabling a variety of novel applications for road safety, passenger infotainment, car manufacturer services, and vehicle traffic optimization. Today, V2X communications is based on one of two main technologies: dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) and cellular networks. However, in the near future, it is not expected that a single technology can support such a variety of expected V2X applications for a large number of vehicles. Hence, interworking between DSRC and cellular network technologies for efficient V2X communications is proposed. This paper surveys potential DSRC and cellular interworking solutions for efficient V2X communications. First, we highlight the limitations of each technology in supporting V2X applications. Then, we review potential DSRC-cellular hybrid architectures, together with the main interworking challenges resulting from vehicle mobility, such as vertical handover and network selection issues. In addition, we provide an overview of the global DSRC standards, the existing V2X research and development platforms, and the V2X products already adopted and deployed in vehicles by car manufactures, as an attempt to align academic research with automotive industrial activities. Finally, we suggest some open research issues for future V2X communications based on the interworking of DSRC and cellular network technologies.
This paper studies the multihop packet delivery delay in a low density vehicular ad hoc network (VANET). We address a disrupted vehicle-to-infrastructure communication scenario, where an end-to-end ...path is unlikely to exist between a vehicle and the nearest road side unit (RSU). We present an analytical framework, which takes into account the randomness of vehicle data traffic and the statistical variation of the disrupted communication channel. Our framework employs the effective bandwidth theory and its dual, the effective capacity concept, in order to obtain the maximum distance between RSUs that stochastically limits the worst case packet delivery delay to a certain bound (i.e., allows only an arbitrarily small fraction of the packets received by the farthest vehicle from the RSU to exceed a required delay bound). Our study also investigates the effect of the vehicle density, transmission range, and speed difference between vehicles on the end-to-end packet delivery delay. Extensive simulation results validate our analytical framework.
A vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a promising addition to our future intelligent transportation systems, which supports various safety and infotainment applications. The high node mobility and ...frequent topology changes in VANETs impose new challenges in maintaining a long-lasting connection between network nodes. As a result, the lifetime of communication links is a crucial issue in VANET development and operation. This paper presents a probabilistic analysis of the communication link in VANETs for three vehicle density ranges. First, we present the stationary distribution of the communication link length using mesoscopic mobility models. Second, we propose a stochastic microscopic mobility model that captures time variations of intervehicle distances (distance headways). A discrete-time finite-state Markov chain with state-dependent transition probabilities is proposed to model the distance headway. Third, the proposed stochastic microscopic model and first passage time analysis are used to derive the probability distribution of the communication link lifetime. Numerical results are presented to evaluate the proposed model, which demonstrate a close agreement between analytical and simulation results.
Efficient usage of energy in wireless networks represents a major concern in academia and industry, mainly because of environmental, financial, and quality-of-experience considerations. Various ...solutions have been proposed to enable efficient energy usage in wireless networks, and these approaches are referred to as green wireless communications and networking. In this survey, we mainly focus on energy-efficient techniques in base stations and mobile terminals as they constitute the major sources of energy consumption in wireless access networks, from the operator and user perspectives, respectively. Unlike the existing articles and surveys, we aim to present a unified treatment of green solutions and analytical models for both network operators and mobile users. Such a unified treatment will help in the future to develop green solutions that enable an improved and balanced efficient usage of energy by operators and end users.
Due to the rapid advancement in the wireless communication technology and automotive industries, the paradigm of vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) emerges as a promising approach to provide road ...safety, vehicle traffic management, and infotainment applications. Cooperative communication, on the other hand, can enhance the reliability of communication links in VANETs, thus mitigating wireless channel impairments due to the user mobility. In this paper, we present a cooperative scheme for medium access control (MAC) in VANETs, referred to as Cooperative ADHOC MAC (CAH-MAC). In CAH-MAC, neighboring nodes cooperate by utilizing unreserved time slots, for retransmission of a packet which failed to reach the target receiver due to a poor channel condition. Through mathematical analysis and simulation, we show that our scheme increases the probability of successful packet transmission and hence the network throughput in various networking scenarios.
Node clustering is a potential approach to improve the scalability of networking protocols in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). High relative vehicle mobility and frequent network topology changes ...inflict new challenges on maintaining stable clusters. As a result, cluster stability is a crucial measure of the efficiency of clustering algorithms for VANETs. This paper presents a stochastic analysis of the vehicle mobility impact on single-hop cluster stability. A stochastic mobility model is adopted to capture the time variations of intervehicle distances (distance headways). First, we propose a discrete-time lumped Markov chain to model the time variations of a system of distance headways. Second, the first passage time analysis is used to derive probability distributions of the time periods of the invariant cluster-overlap state and cluster membership as measures of cluster stability. Third, queueing theory is utilized to model the limiting behaviors of the numbers of common and unclustered nodes between neighboring clusters. Numerical results are presented to evaluate the proposed models, which demonstrate a close agreement between analytical and simulation results.
Vehicular networks require a reliable and efficient one-hop broadcast service to disseminate delay sensitive messages for high-priority safety applications. However, frequent link breakage in the ...dynamic networking conditions, in the presence of high relative mobility and channel fading, poses technical challenges in satisfying the strict service requirements. Makeup transmissions can improve the performance through repetitive broadcasting of packets before detecting a transmission failure. In this paper, we introduce a node cooperation based makeup strategy for vehicular networks, referred to as cooperative relay broadcasting (CRB), such that neighboring nodes rebroadcast the packet from a source node, increasing the reliability of the broadcast service. The decision to perform CRB is taken proactively and based on the channel conditions between the relaying nodes and the target one-hop neighbors. We propose an optimization framework that provides an upper bound on the CRB performance with accurate channel information. Further, we propose a channel prediction scheme based on a two-state first-order Markov chain to select the best relaying node for CRB. We study the reliability of the broadcast service in terms of packet received rate and packet delivery rate. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed CRB scheme provides a more reliable broadcast service, as compared with existing approaches.
The location of mobile terminals has received considerable attention in the recent years. The performance of mobile location systems is limited by errors primarily caused by nonline-of-sight (NLOS) ...propagation conditions. We investigate the NLOS error identification and correction techniques for mobile user location in wireless cellular systems. Based on how much a priori knowledge of the NLOS error is available, two NLOS mitigation algorithms are proposed. Simulation results demonstrate that with the prior information database, the location estimate can be obtained with good accuracy even in severe NLOS propagation conditions.
In cognitive radio networks (CRNs), effective and efficient channel exploitation is imperative for unlicensed secondary users to seize available network resources and improve resource utilization. In ...this paper, we propose a simple channel sensing order for secondary users in multi-channel CRNs without a priori knowledge of primary user activities. By sensing the channels according to the descending order of their achievable rates with optimal stopping, we show that the proposed channel exploitation approach is efficient yet effective in elevating throughput and resource utilization. Simulation results show that our proposed channel exploitation approach outperforms its counterparts by up to 18% in a single-secondary user pair scenario. In addition, we investigate the probability of packet transmission collision in a multi-secondary user pair scenario, and show that the probability of collision decreases as the number of channels increases and/or the number of secondary user pairs decreases. It is observed that the total throughput and resource utilization increase with the number of secondary user pairs due to increased transmission opportunities and multi-user diversity. Our results also demonstrate that resource utilization can be further improved via the proposed channel exploitation approach when the number of secondary user pairs approaches the number of channels.
In this paper, radio resource allocation in a heterogeneous wireless access medium is studied. Mobile terminals (MTs) are assumed to have multi-homing capabilities. Both constant bit rate and ...variable bit rate services are considered. A novel algorithm is developed for the resource allocation. Unlike existing solutions in literature, the proposed algorithm is distributed in nature, such that each network base station / access point can perform its own resource allocation to support the MTs according to their service classes. The coordination among different available wireless access networks' base stations is established via the MT multiple radio interfaces in order to provide the required bandwidth to each MT. A priority mechanism is employed, so that each network gives a higher priority on its resources to its own subscribers as compared to other users. Numerical results demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm.