Generative AI-enabled Vehicular Networks: Fundamentals, Framework, and Case Study

Recognizing the tremendous improvements that the integration of generative AI can bring to intelligent transportation systems, this article explores the integration of generative AI technologies in vehicular networks, focusing on their potential applications and challenges. Generative AI, with its capabilities of generating realistic data and facilitating advanced decision-making processes, enhances various applications when combined with vehicular networks, such as navigation optimization, traffic prediction, data generation, and evaluation. Despite these promising applications, the integration of generative AI with vehicular networks faces several challenges, such as real-time data processing and decision-making, adapting to dynamic and unpredictable environments, as well as privacy and security concerns. To address these challenges, we propose a multi-modality semantic-aware framework to enhance the service quality of generative AI. By leveraging multi-modal and semantic communication technologies, the framework enables the use of text and image data for creating multi-modal content, providing more reliable guidance to receiving vehicles and ultimately improving system usability and efficiency. To further improve the reliability and efficiency of information transmission and reconstruction within the framework, taking generative AI-enabled vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) as a case study, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based approach is proposed for resource allocation. Finally, we discuss potential research directions and anticipated advancements in the field of generative AI-enabled vehicular networks.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Spatial inference of traffic transition using micro-macro traffic variables

This paper proposes an online traffic inference algorithm for road segments in which local traffic information cannot be directly observed. Using macro-micro traffic variables as inputs, the algorithm consists of three main operations. First, it uses interarrival time (time headway) statistics from upstream and downstream locations to spatially infer traffic transitions at an unsupervised piece of segment. Second, it estimates lane-level flow and occupancy at the same unsupervised target site. Third, it estimates individual lane-level shockwave propagation times on the segment. Using real-world closed-circuit television data, it is shown that the proposed algorithm outperforms previously proposed methods in the literature