Multi-hopping data considerations for inter-vehicle communication over multiple lanes

The use of inter-vehicle communication to improve the safety of the worsening traffic situation has aroused much interest. By exchanging data, such as the speed and direction of each vehicle, it becomes possible to predict dangerous situations and take appropriate action, thus reducing the number and severity of traffic accidents. So far, several papers have examined multi-hop inter-vehicle communication within a single lane, but little work has been reported for multiple lane inter-vehicle communication. Particularly when directed or narrow beam communication systems are employed, it is desirable to know the performance of an inter-vehicle communication system over multiple lanes. We examine a multi-lane, multi-hop inter-vehicle communication network. Several parameters considered to be of importance to this type of network, such as number of hops, data rate, single hop communication distance are examined and their effect on network performance is reported.