A realistic path loss model for real-time communication in the urban grid environment for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks

Wireless signal transmission is influenced by environmental effects. These effects have also been challenging for Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) in real-time communication. More specifically, in an urban environment, with high mobility among vehicles, a vehicle’s status from the transmitter can instantly trigger from line of sight to non-line of sight, which may cause loss of real-time communication. In order to overcome this, a deterministic signal propagation model is required, which has less complexity and more feasibility of implementation. Hence, we propose a realistic path loss model which adopts ray tracing technique for VANET in a grid urban environment with less computational complexity. To evaluate the model, it is applied to a vehicular simulation scenario. The results obtained are compared with different path loss models in the same scenario based on path loss value and application layer performance analysis. The proposed path loss model provides higher loss value in dB compared to other models. Nevertheless, the performance of vehicle-vehicle communication, which is evaluated by the packet delivery ratio with different vehicle transmitter density verifies improvement in real-time vehicle-vehicle communication. In conclusion, we present a realistic path loss model that improves vehicle-vehicle wireless real-time communication in the grid urban environment

A Power-Efficient Clustering Protocol for Coal Mine Face Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Networks Under Channel Fading Conditions

This study proposes a novel power-efficient and anti-fading clustering based on a cross-layer that is specific to the time-varying fading characteristics of channels in the monitoring of coal mine faces with wireless sensor networks. The number of active sensor nodes and a sliding window are set up such that the optimal number of cluster heads (CHs) is selected in each round. Based on a stable expected number of CHs, we explore the channel efficiency between nodes and the base station by using a probe frame and the joint surplus energy in assessing the CH selection. Moreover, the sending power of a node in different periods is regulated by the signal fade margin method. The simulation results demonstrate that compared with several common algorithms, the power-efficient and fading-aware clustering with a cross-layer (PEAFC-CL) protocol features a stable network topology and adaptability under signal time-varying fading, which effectively prolongs the lifetime of the network and reduces network packet loss, thus making it more applicable to the complex and variable environment characteristic of a coal mine face