An Efficient Prediction-Based Data Forwarding Strategy in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network

Abstract

As an important infrastructure of intelligent transportation system (ITS), vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) provide navigation and positioning, information services, driver assistance, in-vehicle entertainment, and other functions for the owners improving the development of the future smart city. Due to the high dynamic nature of VANETs, choosing a relatively stable and reliable transmission path to reduce the link breakage is obviously very important. In this paper, we propose an efficient prediction-based data forwarding strategy to ensure the reliability and efficiency of data transmission in VANETs. Besides the link lifetime prediction, we introduce a new metric named link utility used in the process of forwarder selection, in order to improve data forwarding efficiency. Link utility reflects the impact of relative velocity and distance between the vehicles on the efficiency of intervehicle data transmissions. It can be used to optimize packet routing and minimize number of hops especially in the high-density VANETs. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed forwarding strategy through simulation confirming its feasibility and effectiveness. </jats:p