Decentralised wireless data dissemination for vehicle-to-vehicle communications

Topham, Debra Ann (2012). Decentralised wireless data dissemination for vehicle-to-vehicle communications. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with inter-vehicle communications supporting the deployment of future safety-related applications. Through use case analysis of the specific communica- tions requirements of safety related and traffic efficiency applications, a data dissemination framework is proposed that is able to meet the various message delivery requirements. More specifically, this thesis focuses on the subset of the proposed framework, which provides geocasting, i.e. addressing a geographical area on the road network, and local zone connectivity, providing neighbour awareness, for safety related applications. The enabling communications technology for inter-vehicle communications based on IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network devices and the associated lack of reliability it presents for the distribution of safety messages in broadcast mode, form the main topic of this thesis. A dissemination scheme for safety related inter-vehicular communication applica- tions, using realistic vehicular traffic patterns, is proposed, implemented and evaluated to demonstrate mechanisms for efficient, reliable and timely delivery of safety messages over an unreliable channel access scheme. The original contribution of this thesis is to propose a novel data dissemination protocol for vehicular environments, capable of simultaneously achieving significant economy of messaging, whilst maintaining near 100% reliable message delivery in a timely manner for a wide variety of highway traffic flow scenarios, ranging from sparsely, fragmented networks to dense, congested road networks. This is achieved through increased protocol complexity in inferring and tracking each vehicular node’s local environment, coupled with implementing adaptation to both local data traffic intensity and vehicular density. Adaptivity is achieved through creating and employing an empirical channel access delay model and embedding the stochastic delay distribution in decisions made at the network layer; this method of adaptivity is novel in itself. Moreover, unnecessary retransmissions arising from the inherent uncertainty of the wireless medium are suppressed through a novel three-step mechanism.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):