Design and Implementation of an Application for Deploying Vehicular Networks with Smartphones

Abstract

A vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a wireless network that provides communications between nearby vehicles. Among the different types of information that can be made available to vehicles through VANETs, road traffic information is the most important one. This work is part of an experimental development of a wireless communication platform oriented to applications that allow improving road efficiency and safety, managing and monitoring road traffic, encouraging cooperative driving, and offering pedestrian services and other added-value uses. The proposed system consists of smartphones, sensors, and Wi-Fi hotspots 2.0, as well as complementary functionalities including access to network infrastructure via 3G, GPRS, and 4G. The developed wireless network prototype allows taking advantage of the potential benefits of VANETs. At the same time, the use of smartphones does not require large money investments either in public or restricted areas. The first implementations with smartphones have been useful to test the behaviour of the proposal in a real environment. We have also implemented a large-scale simulation by using NS-2 simulator. From the obtained data, we have estimated the minimum requirements necessary for the correct working of a VANET and the problems that can happen in case of possible attacks or communication overhead.

LTE and IEEE 802.11p for vehicular networking: a performance evaluation

“…The design of the VoCell architecture incorporates many of the required features observed through comprehensive empirical study of IEEE 802.11p/wireless access in vehicular environment (WAVE) and LTE-based vehicular networks. Similarly, authors in [25] proposed a software framework for designing and developing vehicular network applications on smartphones. The proposed architecture exploits several communication technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct, and 3G/4G.…”

Use Of Smartphones for Ensuring Vulnerable Road User Safety through Path Prediction and Early Warning: An In-Depth Review of Capabilities, Limitations and Their Applications in Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems

“…However, despite a significant amount of conducted research, the deployment of real-world VANETs has been slow. This is due to the costs associated with the required communication devices [8]. Using smartphones in VANETs is appealing because it is cost effective while it supports the integration of pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists into the network.…”

Smartphone-Based Vehicle Telematics: A Ten-Year Anniversary

“…One solution is to make use of the sensing, computing, and storage capabilities of the smartphone, and then use Bluetooth or WiFi to send data from the smartphone to a low-cost in-vehicle 802. to communicate with roadside units or other on-board units [145], [146]. Implementations have also been proposed where the wireless communication is instead partially or completely based on the IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n standards [144], [147]- [149], or on cellular connectivity [41], [150]. However, the link performance of these implementations is expected to be worse than under the IEEE 802.11p standard.…”