Performance analysis of IEEE 802.11ac for vehicular networks using realistic traffic scenarios

Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) consists of group of moving vehicles acting as nodes, establishing its own dynamic topology for packets exchange. The vehicles or the nodes are usually travelling at high speeds, resulting into a frequently varying topology. In this paper, we present performance analysis of latest IEEE standard 802.11ac in comparison with previous MAC protocols like 802.11p and 802.11n in vehicular networks using realistic traffic pattern scenarios. SUMO (Simulation of Urban Mobility) is used to generate realistic traffic pattern and performance of these protocols is evaluated using NS-3 (Network Simulator). In this paper, Throughput, Jitter and End-to-End Delay are considered as evaluation parameters. When compared with 802.11n and 802.11p significant improvement in the throughput was observed for 802.11ac when the nodes were closer to each other. But as the distance between the nodes increases, a decrease in throughput was observed. We have also analyzed which of these protocols are suitable for safety and non-safety applications in a VANET.