Routing in Sparse Vehicular Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

— A Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) may exhibit a bipolar behavior, i.e., the network can either be fully connected or sparsely connected depending on the time of day or on the market penetration rate of the wireless communication devices. In this paper, we use empirical vehicle traffic data measured on I-80 freeway in California to develop a comprehensive analytical framework to study the disconnected network phenomenon and its network characteristics. These characteristics shed light on the key routing performance metrics of interest in disconnected VANETs, such as the average time taken to propagate a packet to disconnected nodes (i.e., the re-healing time). Our results show that, depending on the sparsity of vehicles or the market penetration rate of cars using Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) technology, the network re-healing time can vary from a few seconds to several minutes. This suggests that, for vehicular safety applications, a new ad hoc routing protocol will...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: JSAC
• Authors: Nawaporn Wisitpongphan, Fan Bai, Priyantha Mudalige, Varsha K. Sadekar, Ozan K. Tonguz
• Keywords: Ad Hoc, JSAC 2007, Market Penetration Rate, Routing