Evaluating video dissemination in realistic urban vehicular ad-hoc networks

Video content delivery for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is envisioned to be of high benefit for road safety, traffic management as well as for providing value-added vehicle services. In this paper, we evaluate five existing dissemination mechanisms in a realistic urban scenario. We also propose RCP+ as a renovated mechanism for adaptative video streaming over VANETs. RCP+ is a cross layer dissemination mechanism for video safety messages that specifically addresses urban scenarios with zero infrastructure support. Through simulations, we compare our proposal with other distributed dissemination mechanisms. The performance evaluation shows that our proposal mechanism is more suitable for video transmission in realistic urban scenarios. The results also indicate that a modified frame coding approach provides many opportunities for multimedia services.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version