A Data Traffic Steering Algorithm for IEEE 802.11p/LTE Hybrid Vehicular Networks

Reliable vehicular communication is considered an important precondition for future intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). Recently, a combination of ad-hoc direct communication and infrastructure based cellular networks are considered to enable seamless connectivity and sufficient Quality of Service (QoS) for all types of vehicular applications. Within this paper a novel algorithm to enable data traffic steering between ad-hoc IEEE 802.11p based dedicated short range communication and LTE for Vehicle-to-X (V2X) communication is presented. Based on the system-level evaluation of cell loads and radio channel congestion the network based performance of the proposed algorithm is analyzed and compared to the conservative approach of using exclusively IEEE 802.11p for message dissemination. First simulation results in a realistic urban intersection scenario show significant improvement of the quality of service.