Environment-based roadside unit deployment for urban scenarios

Vehicular communications are increasingly gaining importance in research and industry as a viable communication technology, which makes cost-efficient and reliable deployment strategies a key aspect for the planning of a communication network infrastructure. The most critical aspect, and at the same time, the biggest challenge is to obtain a total connectivity between the vehicles and the network elements. In this paper, an environment-based deployment strategy is developed, obtaining an optimal number and distribution of RSUs in a selected area while maximizing the connectivity of the network. The main distinctive aspect of the proposed strategy is the use of an environment-based radio channel model, which is specific for a given urban area. Once the site-specific propagation parameters of the proposed radio channel model are obtained, the optimal RSU distribution is achieved by solving a multi-objective, integer linear program. In addition, a metaheuristic algorithm based on tabu-search is proposed for the solution. The network optimization scheme suggested in this work shows an enhanced coverage granting an always on connectivity for vehicle-to-infrastructure networks. Furthermore, due to the optimal number of RSUs, the cost of the network is minimized, which makes the deployment strategy feasible for real scenarios.