Information dissemination in multihop inter-vehicle networks

In addition to the integration of vehicles into traditional networks (e.g. access to the Internet via cellular) the Ad-hoc connection of vehicles within a limited area is a technology that promises a lot of innovative and exciting services. This paper starts with the description of some services to motivate Ad-hoc networking in the vehicular environment. It then gives an overview of the current challenges (especially routing protocols) in this field. If the geographic position of the network nodes is known, better performance can be achieved with the utilization of so called geocast routing-algorithms. An overview of geocast-routing is given and shortcomings of the existing protocols for the usage in inter-vehicle Ad-hoc networks are explained. Finally we make a proposal for a vehicle-optimized geocast routing, protocol that is based on AODV and present our prototype implementation.