Physical Layer Evaluation on IEEE 802.11p With Different Configurations in NLOS Scenarios for V2V Communications

Motivated by the evolution of vehicular technologies and applications, the vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications can be realized by the dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) and cellular V2X (C-V2X) which are undergoing continuous and widespread development. As the first standardized DSRC technology, IEEE 802.11p, that has been studied with large-scale field trials performed worldwide, is more mature and robust than the other V2X technologies. The main contributions of the proposed work over previous work are listed as follows. Firstly, to break the limitation of partial physical layer (PHY) evaluation, extensive PHY metrics, which include the packet error rate (PER), packet reception ratio (PRR), output packet inter-arrival time (IAT), and output effective data rate, are adequately employed to fulfill complete PHY evaluation. Secondly, to avoid incomplete analysis on antenna configurations, various multi-antenna configurations, containing the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), single-input multiple-output (SIMO), and multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, are involved together with the single-input single-output (SISO) configuration to realize comprehensive analysis on diverse antenna configurations. Finally, to overcome unobvious exhibition on effect of parameters on PHY performance, considerably different packet sizes and modulation and coding schemes (MCSs) are investigated under the urban non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and highway NLOS scenarios to disclose the deep impact of each parameter. Important conclusions from a thorough MATLAB-based PHY simulation are summarized as follows. Firstly, in comparison with the SISO system, the multi-antenna systems are more favorable in reducing the PER, increasing the PRR and transmission coverage, decreasing the output packet IAT, and elevating the output effective data rate, below the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) threshold and above the distance threshold. Secondly, the packet size and the MCS should be determined suitably to adapt to the high-reliability, low-latency, or high-throughput requirement in different applications. Finally, compared to the highway NLOS scenario with higher Doppler effect, the urban NLOS scenario is more tolerant to the larger packet and higher MCS in the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications with its lower PER, larger PRR and transmission coverage, smaller output packet IAT, and higher output effective data rate.