A Communication Protocol for a Vehicle Collision Warning System

Advances in wireless communication technologies have enabled vehicles on a highway to communicate in order to share state information and provide drivers with potential collision warnings. This paper proposes a protocol to support such a vehicle collision warning system. By sharing vehicle state information, the protocol is able to predict potential collisions and deliver warning messages to address different emergency scenarios. The protocol is based on the concept of Shortest Safety Distance between vehicles and the Safety Invariant. The protocol provides mechanisms to evaluate potential violations of the safety invariant and propagate warning messages to avoid them in a timely manner. It ensures that warning messages are propagated to all endangered vehicles in an emergency scenario in an efficient manner by keeping the number of messages low. We have simulated the system using the SPIN model checker to show the correctness of the protocol and its effectiveness in eliminating redundant messages.