Vehicular Communications Networks: Current Trends and Challenges

International audienceVehicular communications networks (VCNs) are created by vehicles equipped with short and medium range wireless communication technology. They include vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs), vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. VCNs enable a plethora of important applications and services, ranging from active safety or safety of life applications to traffic information, music/maps download and multi-hop internet connection. Recently, the promises of wireless communications to support vehicular safety applications have led to several national/international projects around the world. These include the consortia like Vehicle Safety Consortium (US), Car-2-Car Communication Consortium (Europe) and Advanced Safety Vehicle Program (Japan), standardization efforts like IEEE 802.11p (WAVE), and field trials like the large-scale Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Program (VII) in the US. All these efforts have as a main goal to improve safety in vehicular environments by the use of wireless communications, but also consider transport efficiency, comfort and environment. In comparison to other communication networks, VCNs come with unique attractive features: unlimited transmission power, predictable mobility and plethora of potential applications. However, to bring its potency to fruition, VCNs have to cope with formidable challenges that include: rapidly changing topology subject to frequent fragmentations and congestions, lack of connectivity redundancy, and the stringent application requirement on real-time and robust message delivery. In this chapter, we present a detailed description of the state of the art of this fast-moving research area pointing to research, projects and standardization efforts that have been done. We explore the unique features and challenges that characterise these highly dynamic networks as well as their requirements with respect to applications, types of communication, self-organization and security. We discuss various forwarding and routing strategies focussing on position-based techniques including 'anchor-based routing'. We survey various 'intelligent flooding' and information dissemination approaches. Scenarios for highways and cities are taken as example. We conclude by exploring future research directions in this field