Adoption of vehicular ad hoc networking protocols by networked robots

This paper focuses on the utilization of wireless networking in the robotics domain. Many researchers have already equipped their robots with wireless communication capabilities, stimulated by the observation that multi-robot systems tend to have several advantages over their single-robot counterparts. Typically, this integration of wireless communication is tackled in a quite pragmatic manner, only a few authors presented novel Robotic Ad Hoc Network (RANET) protocols that were designed specifically with robotic use cases in mind. This is in sharp contrast with the domain of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). This observation is the starting point of this paper. If the results of previous efforts focusing on VANET protocols could be reused in the RANET domain, this could lead to rapid progress in the field of networked robots. To investigate this possibility, this paper provides a thorough overview of the related work in the domain of robotic and vehicular ad hoc networks. Based on this information, an exhaustive list of requirements is defined for both types. It is concluded that the most significant difference lies in the fact that VANET protocols are oriented towards low throughput messaging, while RANET protocols have to support high throughput media streaming as well. Although not always with equal importance, all other defined requirements are valid for both protocols. This leads to the conclusion that cross-fertilization between them is an appealing approach for future RANET research. To support such developments, this paper concludes with the definition of an appropriate working plan

Cooperative awareness using roadside unit networks in mixed traffic

International audienceVehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) messaging is an indispensable component of connected autonomous vehicle systems. Although V2V standards have been specified by the European Union, United States, and Japan, the deployment phase represents mixed traffic in which connected and legacy vehicles co-exist. To enhance cooperative awareness in this mixed traffic, we assessed the special roadside unit that we developed in our previous work that generates required V2V messages on behalf of sensed target vehicles. In this paper, we extend our earlier work to propose a system called Grid Proxy Cooperative Awareness Message to broaden the cooperative awareness message dissemination area by connecting infrastructure using high-speed roadside networks. To minimize delay in message delivery, we designed the proposed system to use edge computing. The proposed scheme delivers cooperative messages to a wider area with a low delay and a high packet delivery ratio by prioritizing packets by their respective safety contributions. Our simulation results indicate that the proposed scheme efficiently delivers messages in heavy road traffic conditions modeled on real maps of Tokyo and Paris

Benchmarking the cooperative awareness service at application layer with IEEE 802.11p and LTE-PC5 Mode-4

© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. Al document ha d’aparèixer l’enllaç a la publicació original a IEEE, o bé al Digital Object Identifier (DOI).Vehicular communications hold the promise of disrupting mobility services and supporting the mass adoption of future autonomous vehicles. Regulators have set aside specific spectrum at the 5.9 GHz band to support Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) safety applications, for which a world-wide adoption of a standardized radio technology is a key factor to deliver on this promise. Two technologies are currently positioned to begin its commercial path, IEEE 802.11p and LTE-PC5 Mode-4. The main differences between these technologies lie on the design of their channel access mechanisms. This paper provides an analysis of the impact that the Medium Access Control (MAC) mechanisms included in 802.11p and LTE-PC5 Mode-4 will have on the performance of the applications using the Cooperative Awareness Service, applying two new application-level metrics used by safety applications: Neighborhood Awareness Ratio and Position Error. We have found that, even with an equivalent physical layer performance, the MAC layer of LTE-PC5 Mode-4 will mostly outperform the MAC layer of IEEE 802.11p (or its not yet ready enhanced version 802.11bd). However, IEEE 802.11p/bd results in slightly better vehicle positioning accuracy at lower distances.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Distributed Adaptation Techniques for Connected Vehicles

In this PhD dissertation, we propose distributed adaptation mechanisms for connected vehicles to deal with the connectivity challenges. To understand the system behavior of the solutions for connected vehicles, we first need to characterize the operational environment. Therefore, we devised a large scale fading model for various link types, including point-to-point vehicular communications and multi-hop connected vehicles. We explored two small scale fading models to define the characteristics of multi-hop connected vehicles. Taking our research into multi-hop connected vehicles one step further, we propose selective information relaying to avoid message congestion due to redundant messages received by the relay vehicle. Results show that the proposed mechanism reduces messaging load by up to 75% without sacrificing environmental awareness. Once we define the channel characteristics, we propose a distributed congestion control algorithm to solve the messaging overhead on the channels as the next research interest of this dissertation. We propose a combined transmit power and message rate adaptation for connected vehicles. The proposed algorithm increases the environmental awareness and achieves the application requirements by considering highly dynamic network characteristics. Both power and rate adaptation mechanisms are performed jointly to avoid one result affecting the other negatively. Results prove that the proposed algorithm can increase awareness by 20% while keeping the channel load and interference at almost the same level as well as improve the average message rate by 18%. As the last step of this dissertation, distributed cooperative dynamic spectrum access technique is proposed to solve the channel overhead and the limited resources issues. The adaptive energy detection threshold, which is used to decide whether the channel is busy, is optimized in this work by using a computationally efficient numerical approach. Each vehicle evaluates the available channels by voting on the information received from one-hop neighbors. An interdisciplinary approach referred to as entropy-based weighting is used for defining the neighbor credibility. Once the vehicle accesses the channel, we propose a decision mechanism for channel switching that is inspired by the optimal flower selection process employed by bumblebees foraging. Experimental results show that by using the proposed distributed cooperative spectrum sensing mechanism, spectrum detection error converges to zero

On the Feasibility of Social Network-based Pollution Sensing in ITSs

Intense vehicular traffic is recognized as a global societal problem, with a multifaceted influence on the quality of life of a person. Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) can play an important role in combating such problem, decreasing pollution levels and, consequently, their negative effects. One of the goals of ITSs, in fact, is that of controlling traffic flows, measuring traffic states, providing vehicles with routes that globally pursue low pollution conditions. How such systems measure and enforce given traffic states has been at the center of multiple research efforts in the past few years. Although many different solutions have been proposed, very limited effort has been devoted to exploring the potential of social network analysis in such context. Social networks, in general, provide direct feedback from people and, as such, potentially very valuable information. A post that tells, for example, how a person feels about pollution at a given time in a given location, could be put to good use by an environment aware ITS aiming at minimizing contaminant emissions in residential areas. This work verifies the feasibility of using pollution related social network feeds into ITS operations. In particular, it concentrates on understanding how reliable such information is, producing an analysis that confronts over 1,500,000 posts and pollution data obtained from on-the- field sensors over a one-year span.Comment: 10 pages, 15 figures, Transaction Forma

Thirty Years of Machine Learning: The Road to Pareto-Optimal Wireless Networks

Future wireless networks have a substantial potential in terms of supporting a broad range of complex compelling applications both in military and civilian fields, where the users are able to enjoy high-rate, low-latency, low-cost and reliable information services. Achieving this ambitious goal requires new radio techniques for adaptive learning and intelligent decision making because of the complex heterogeneous nature of the network structures and wireless services. Machine learning (ML) algorithms have great success in supporting big data analytics, efficient parameter estimation and interactive decision making. Hence, in this article, we review the thirty-year history of ML by elaborating on supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning and deep learning. Furthermore, we investigate their employment in the compelling applications of wireless networks, including heterogeneous networks (HetNets), cognitive radios (CR), Internet of things (IoT), machine to machine networks (M2M), and so on. This article aims for assisting the readers in clarifying the motivation and methodology of the various ML algorithms, so as to invoke them for hitherto unexplored services as well as scenarios of future wireless networks.Comment: 46 pages, 22 fig