A Multi-Layer Approach for Improving the Scalability of Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

Abstract:
Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC) and its diverse possibilities for telematics and on-line safety applications have led to great interest in both academia and industry. Especially the broadcast-based dissemination of automatically generated, local danger warning messages in such networks bears huge potential to increase both driver safety and comfort. However, the shared wireless medium that is used for the data exchange may quickly become overloaded. To enable inter-vehicular networks that work properly in case of varying network load and vehicle density, novel approaches must be defined that ensure the reliable and timely delivery of highly relevant messages. In this work, we propose a holistic framework that spans over both the application and the MAC layer and facilitates the scalability of VANETs by introducing information differentiation.We present diverse strategies to modify the packet broadcast sequence as well as the MAC functionality according to the benefit which messages are expected to provide to adjacent network nodes. A comprehensive simulation setup is leveraged to prove the advantages of our concept.