Minimum node degree of k-connected vehicular ad hoc networks in highway scenarios

A vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a specific type of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs); it can provide direct or multi-hop vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-roadside (V2R), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P), and vehicle-to-internet (V2I)communications based on the pre-existing road layouts. The emerging and promising VANET technologies have drawn tremendous attention from the government, academics, and industry over the past few years and have been increasingly available for a large number of cutting edge applications that can be classified into road safety, traffic efficiency, and infotainment categories. Due to the unique characteristics of VANETs, such as high mobility with an organized but constrained pattern, and diverse radio propagation conditions, the conventional researches dedicated for general MANETs cannot be directly applied to VANETs. This paper presents an analytical framework to investigate the minimum node degree of k-connected VANETs, with a homogeneous range assignment in highway scenarios. We simulate the mobility patterns with realistic vehicular traces, model the network topology as a two-path fading geometric random graph, and conduct extensive experiments on the derived analytical results. Through a combination of mathematical modeling and simulations, we derive a probabilistic bound for the minimum node degree of a homogeneous vehicular ad hoc network in highway scenarios. The analytical framework is useful in the study of connectivity and estimation of performance in one-dimensional vehicular ad hoc networks

VANET Connectivity Analysis

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are a peculiar subclass of mobile ad hoc networks that raise a number of technical challenges, notably from the point of view of their mobility models. In this paper, we provide a thorough analysis of the connectivity of such networks by leveraging on well-known results of percolation theory. By means of simulations, we study the influence of a number of parameters, including vehicle density, proportion of equipped vehicles, and radio communication range. We also study the influence of traffic lights and roadside units. Our results provide insights on the behavior of connectivity. We believe this paper to be a valuable framework to assess the feasibility and performance of future applications relying on vehicular connectivity in urban scenarios

Research on Wireless Multi-hop Networks: Current State and Challenges

Wireless multi-hop networks, in various forms and under various names, are being increasingly used in military and civilian applications. Studying connectivity and capacity of these networks is an important problem. The scaling behavior of connectivity and capacity when the network becomes sufficiently large is of particular interest. In this position paper, we briefly overview recent development and discuss research challenges and opportunities in the area, with a focus on the network connectivity.Comment: invited position paper to International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications, Hawaii, USA, 201

Two-Hop Connectivity to the Roadside in a VANET Under the Random Connection Model

We compute the expected number of cars that have at least one two-hop path to a fixed roadside unit in a one-dimensional vehicular ad hoc network in which other cars can be used as relays to reach a roadside unit when they do not have a reliable direct link. The pairwise channels between cars experience Rayleigh fading in the random connection model, and so exist, with probability function of the mutual distance between the cars, or between the cars and the roadside unit. We derive exact equivalents for this expected number of cars when the car density $\rho$ tends to zero and to infinity, and determine its behaviour using an infinite oscillating power series in $\rho$, which is accurate for all regimes. We also corroborate those findings to a realistic situation, using snapshots of actual traffic data. Finally, a normal approximation is discussed for the probability mass function of the number of cars with a two-hop connection to the origin. The probability mass function appears to be well fitted by a Gaussian approximation with mean equal to the expected number of cars with two hops to the origin.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure

Faster Information Propagation on Highways: a Virtual MIMO Approach

In vehicular communications, traffic-related information should be spread over the network as quickly as possible to maintain a safe and reliable transportation system. This motivates us to develop more efficient information propagation schemes. In this paper, we propose a novel cluster-based cooperative information forwarding scheme, in which the vehicles opportunistically form virtual antenna arrays to boost one-hop transmission range and therefore accelerate information propagation along the highway. Both closed-form results of the transmission range gain and the improved Information Propagation Speed (IPS) are derived and verified by simulations. It is observed that the proposed scheme demonstrates the most significant IPS gain in moderate traffic scenarios, whereas too dense or too sparse vehicle density results in less gain. Moreover, it is also shown that increased mobility offers more contact opportunities and thus facilitates information propagation.Comment: IEEE 2014 Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM 2014) - Communication Theory Symposiu