Context-aware heterogeneous V2I communications

The automotive industry is currently focusing on the research and development of the IEEE 802.11p technology to support V2V and V2I communications. However, connected vehicles will benefit from exploiting heterogeneous communications technologies to satisfy the diverse functional and operational requirements of vehicular applications under variable context conditions. In this context, a key aspect is the adequate selection and management of the different radio access technologies that will be integrated in connected vehicles. This paper proposes a novel context-aware heterogeneous V2I communications technique that exploits context information to make intelligent decisions on the most adequate communications technology to use at each moment in order to improve both individual and system performance. The decision is directly made by each vehicle with assistance from the infrastructure. The results obtained demonstrate the benefits of the proposed technique, and its robustness to the variability and accuracy of the context information.