Modeling and Simulation of WAVE 1609.4-based Multi-channel Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Recently, the IEEE 1609.4 Standard for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) has been proposed to enhance the performance of vehicular networks with multi-channel operations that allow for the coexistence of safety-related and non-safety related vehicular applications. However, while the benefits of the multi-channel approach are clear, the impact of the IEEE 1609.4 channel scheduler on the performance of delay-constrained vehicular applications remains to be well explored by researchers. At present, the evaluation of 1609.4-based Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) constitutes an open issue due to the lack of simulation tools that can provide a complete modeling of the IEEE WAVE 802.11p/1609.4 stack. In this paper, we provide three key contributions pertaining to multi-channel VANETs. First, we describe our implementation of the IEEE 1609.4 protocol in the ns2 simulator, and we detail its current integration with the existing ns2 implementation of the 802.11p MAC protocol. Second, using our simulation model we propose an evaluation study of 1609.4-based VANETs, and we show that the tight channel synchronization issues foreseen by the protocol might have a dramatic impact on the performance of safety-related applications with strict delivery ratio and delay requirements. Third, we propose two new enhancements for the WAVE protocol stack to favor the dissemination of safety messages in multi-channel VANETs. The suggested algorithms are shown to greatly improve packet delivery ratio and delay of safety applications in single and multi-hop topologies, while preserving the synchronization scheme of the IEEE 1609.4 protocol.

A bandwidth-efficient and fair CSMA/TDMA based multichannel MAC scheme for V2V communications

“…However, the way that is chosen by MAC scheme to switch between multiple defined channels has a great impact on its performance. Many papers evaluated the performance of the multichannel operation of the IEEE 1609.4 protocol to show the impact of alternating nature of the protocol [28][29][30][31][32].…”

“…To this end, a customized simulator using NS-2 was developed and tested, and results were published in [41]. The developed simulator integrates the WAVE1609 [30] and CRCN [42] packages with IEEE 802.11p PHY and MAC standard configuration file [43] based on NS-2.34. The WAVE1609 package provides the multichannel operation of the IEEE 1609.4 standard, while the CRCN package helps definition of multiple channels, and the IEEE 802.11p PHY and MAC standard configuration file configures physical and link layer attributes of each channel.…”

On the Impact of Multi-Channel Technology on Safety-Message Delivery in IEEE 802.11p/1609.4 Vehicular Networks

“…These results motivate the need of enhanced MAC contention control mechanisms, that dynamically adapts to the channel decisions performed by the upper WAVE stack. We model a multi-channel VANETs through the ns-2 simulation tool, with the additional extensions for the WAVE protocol stack described in [6]. These extensions provide a realistic modeling of the IEEE 1609.4 multi-channel operations performed by vehicles with a single radio transceiver.…”

“…However, several research papers (e.g. [6] [7] [11] [13]) revealed that halving the available bandwidth might seriously compromise the performance of safety and non-safety vehicular applications over realistic scenarios. In this paper, we investigate the performance of multi-channel IEEE 802.11p/1609.4-based VANETs, and we show that leveraging channel diversity does not always lead to an increase in the performance of wireless systems.…”

Clustering-based enhanced safety message dissemination medium access control protocol for vehicular ad hoc network

“…Misic et al (2011) present the analytical model of the IEEE MAC 802.11p. The simulation studies (Chen et al, 2009a;Di Felice et al, 2012a;Ghandour et al, 2012) discuss the synchronisation of the back-off process at the MAC layer caused due to the CCH/SCH switching operation. This result in an increased probability of collisions for beaconing messages transmitted on the control channels.…”