CoDA: Connectivity-Oriented Data Dissemination Algorithm for Vehicular Internet Access Networks

As a typical scenario of mobile Internet, a vehicular Internet access network is a network where vehicles exploit wireless technologies to communicate with infrastructure directly or indirectly via other vehicles or road-side units in high speed. Thus, opportunistic interactions through neighboring vehicles and infrastructure networks can be utilized to exchange useful data and information. Much effort has been made to improve the total amount of data delivered under the delay tolerant network model, in which data links from and to vehicles are always intermittent. However, the network connectivity is critical to real time or interactive applications and services. In this paper, we investigate the problem to maximize network connectivity in vehicular Internet access networks, where vehicles adopt both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. First, we analyze the characteristics of network connectivity in vehicular Internet access networks and derive a closed-form expression to represent the connectivity probability under specific RSU deployment model and vehicle arrival rate. Then, we develop a connectivity-oriented data dissemination (CoDA) algorithm to maximize the network connectivity probability in vehicular Internet access networks based on probabilistic analysis, which considers multiple factors related to the network connectivity. Finally, we validate the CoDA algorithm through extensive simulations based on the traces from real practise.