Improved multi-hop routing in integrated VANET-LTE hybrid vehicular networks

Abstract

The VANET-LTE integration offers many potential advantages for vehicular networks such as high data rates, low latency and extended communication range. However, utilizing these advantages requires novel protocols and algorithms at each layer of the networking protocol stack. In this paper, we proposed a location-based routing scheme for hybrid vehicular networks that exploits availability of multiple radio access technologies i.e., IEEE 802.11p supported ad hoc and LTE enabled cellular connectivity. Each vehicle periodically transmits link update information to the neighboring vehicles and remote routing server through both interfaces while maintaining forwarding information towards the reachable destinations. For non-reachable destinations route requests are send to the remote routing server which then calculates the route and send route updates to all the intermediate vehicles on the path. The simulation based study shows that the proposed routing scheme considerably improves the packet delivery ratio and achieves lower delay while significantly reducing the communication overhead.