Data transmission plan adaptation complementing strategic time-network selection for connected vehicles

Connected vehicles can nowadays be equipped with multiple network interfaces to access the Internet via a number of networks. To achieve an efficient transmission within this environment, a strategic time-network selection for connected vehicles has been developed, which plans ahead delay-tolerant transmissions. Under perfect prediction (knowledge) of the environment, the proposed strategic time-network selection approach is shown to outperform significantly leading state-of-the-art approaches which are based either on time selection or network selection only. Under realistic environments, however, the efficiency of planning-based approaches may be severely compromised since network presence and available capacities change rapidly and in an unforeseen manner (because of changing conditions due to the uncertainty in car movement, data transmission needs and network characteristics). To address this problem, a mechanism is proposed in this paper that determines the deviation from the anticipated conditions and modifies the transmission plan accordingly. Simulation results show that the proposed adaptation mechanisms help maintain the benefits of a strategic time-network selection planning under changing conditions. © 2018 Elsevier B.V