VC-MAC: A Cooperative MAC Protocol in Vehicular Networks

Vehicular networks are experiencing rapid growth and evolution under the increasing demand of vehicular traffic management and ubiquitous network connectivity. In particular, the amount of information to be downloaded from the roadside-deployed gateways is dramatically increasing. Infected by high mobility, intermittent connectivity, and unreliability of the wireless channel, it is challenging to satisfy the need for massive data transmission in vehicular networks. In this paper, we propose a novel protocol called vehicular cooperative media access control (VC-MAC), which utilizes the concept of cooperative communication tailored for vehicular networks, particularly for gateway-downloading scenarios. VC-MAC leverages the broadcast nature of the wireless medium to maximize the system throughput. Spatial diversity and user diversity are exploited by concurrent cooperative relaying to overcome the unreliability of the wireless channel in vehicular networks. We theoretically analyze the selection of an optimal relay set using a weighted independent set (WIS) model and then design a backoff mechanism to select the optimal relays in a distributed manner. We have carried out extensive simulations to demonstrate that VC-MAC effectively enhances cooperative information downloading and significantly increases the system throughput compared with existing strategies.