Title: Towards characterising and classifying communication-based automotive applications from a wireless networking perspective

Authors: Fan Bai; Hariharan Krishnan; Tamer Elbatt; Gavin Holland

Addresses: General Motors Global R&D, USA ' General Motors Global R&D, USA ' Nile University, Giza, Egypt ' HRL Laboratories, Malibu, CA 90265, USA

Abstract: Together, the Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) and Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) technologies provide a unique opportunity to develop and introduce various types of communication-based automotive technologies to the marketplace. To date, many applications have been identified by the automotive community. Given the large number and diverse nature of these applications, it is advantageous to develop a systematic classification methodology to facilitate future DSRC and VANET research. Toward this objective, in this paper, we present a study that goes through two major steps: characterisation and classification. First, we focus on a set of representative applications and characterise them with respect to plausible application- and networking-related attributes. The characterisation process not only strengthens our understanding of the applications but also sets the stage for the classification step since it reveals numerous application commonalities. Thus, we have categorised the given applications into seven generic classes, with the consideration of balancing the trade-off between exploiting as many application similarities as possible while preserving their salient differences. This is of paramount importance to facilitate performance analysis of newly designed protocols. Finally, we have identified key performance metrics for each class of applications, which, we hope, could bridge the gap between the automotive and wireless networking communities. Accordingly, the proposed classes are envisioned to play a dual-role: facilitate application simulation and performance evaluation and guide DSRC and VANET protocol research and development.

Keywords: VANETs; DSRC; vehicle communications; automotive communications; wireless network; dedicated short range communication; vehicular ad hoc networks; simulation; performance evaluation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVAS.2012.051267

International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems, 2012 Vol.10 No.3, pp.165 - 197

Received: 28 May 2011
Accepted: 25 Dec 2011
Published online: 31 Dec 2014 *