A Hierarchical Architecture for the Future Internet of Vehicles

Recent advances in wireless communication, sensing, computation and control technologies have paved the way for the development of a new era of Internet of Vehicles (IoV). Demanded by the requirements of information-centric and data-driven intelligent transportation systems (ITS), it is of great significance to explore new paradigms of IoV in supporting large-scale, real-time, and reliable information services. In this article, we propose a hierarchical system architecture, which aims at synthesizing the paradigms of software defined networking and fog computing in IoV and best exploiting their synergistic effects on information services. Specifically, a four-layer architecture is designed, comprising the application layer, the control layer, the virtualization layer, and the data layer, with objectives of enabling logically centralized control via the separation of the control plane and the data plane; facilitating adaptive resource allocation and QoS oriented services based on network functions virtualization and network slicing, and enhancing system scalability, responsiveness, and reliability by exploiting the networking, computation, communication, and storage capacities of fog-based services. On this basis, we further analyze newly arising challenges and discuss future research directions by presenting a cross-layer protocol stack. Finally, for the proof of concept, we implement the system prototype and give two case studies in real-world IoV environments. The results of field tests not only demonstrate the great potential of the new architecture, but also give insight into the development of future ITS.