On traffic dynamical aspects of inter vehicle communications (IVC)

Inter vehicle communication (IVC) has become a major topic during the last few years. Within the FleetNet project a novel mobile ad hoc network will be developed - based on the UMTS terrestrial radio access time division duplex (UTRA TDD) air interface - to interconnect vehicles and vehicles with roadside gateways via a mobile Internet. In this paper we focus on the impact of vehicular traffic dynamics on protocols for ad hoc networks. Based on analytical treatment of vehicular traffic and on realistic traffic scenarios, we deduce requirements and their interdependencies for the developed ad hoc networking protocols, and verify them by simulation. We show that the proposed MAC and RRM protocols are suitable for inter vehicle communication with its high dynamics in freeway environments.