Border Node Based Routing Protocol for VANETs in Sparse and Rural Areas

The improvements in MANET technology and the ever-increasing safety requirements have turned vehicle safety communication into an important research topic. In rural and sparse areas where there is very little or no fixed infrastructure available, VANETs will play an important role in providing public safety communications. VANETs in rural and sparse areas are characterized as partially connected mobile ad hoc networks with high node mobility and low node density. Current routing protocols for MANETs are mainly designed for fully connected ad hoc networks and not suitable for packet delivery for VANETs in rural areas. In this paper, we propose a border node based routing (BBR) protocol that can tolerate low node density and high node mobility. The performance of this protocol is evaluated in OPNETtrade with a geographic and traffic information (GTI) based mobility model applied. The simulation results are compared with the DSR routing protocol. The simulation results indicate that BBR protocol performs well under partially connected conditions where DSR fails and yields results comparable to DSR when the network is fully connected.