Integrating OPAL Into CAVISE for Connected Vehicle Simulation With 3D Signal Propagation

Population growth has led to an increased demand for transportation. This increase has subsequently resulted in problems such as road accidents, greenhouse gas emissions, and others. Automated and connected vehicles could be a solution to these problems. However, before they can be released on public roads, they must go through extensive testing, including computer simulation. State-of-the-art open-source connected and automated vehicle simulation environments do not provide signal propagation modeling in 3D environments with elevation differences for vehicular communications. While open-source 3D signal propagation models are available. To avoid redeveloping complex existing technology, it is desirable to integrate such models into state-of-the-art simulation environments. This paper proposes integrating a 3D signal propagation model OPAL into the CAVISE simulation environment as an alternative to the available GEMV2 2D signal propagation model. A comparison of GEMV2 and OPAL models is provided, and an extended CAVISE architecture that can interchange between the two models is synthesized and described. Approaches to further integrate OPAL into the architecture by porting it to Unreal Engine are explored. Various scenarios of information exchange between vehicles using the GEMV2 and OPAL models are simulated. The results are compared, and the models are validated against each other. Current limitations of OPAL capabilities regarding 3D scenario generation are discussed, and possible approaches to improvement are suggested. The findings will be used to develop signal propagation simulation in scenarios with elevation differences and 3D structures in CAVISE.