End-to-End Delay Bound Analysis for Location-Based Routing in Hybrid Vehicular Networks

There is an ongoing debate in the research and industry communities as to whether IEEE 802.11p or Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) should be used for vehicular communications. In this paper, we argue that a hybrid vehicular network combining both technologies can increase the performance of the system. We first propose a mechanism to improve location-based routing in a hybrid vehicular network architecture by data and signaling traffic separation on independent wireless networks. We then develop analytical models to calculate the stochastic upper bound of the end-to-end delay (E2ED) for location-based routing in three different networking architecture alternatives based on a) short-range ad hoc only, b) cellular only, and c) the proposed hybrid ad hoc/cellular network. The analytical approach in this paper is based on the stochastic network calculus (SNC) theory, which provides a solid and uniform framework for analysis of the upper bound of the E2ED in communication networks. It is demonstrated that the proposed hybrid network provides a lower E2ED compared with the other two alternatives. Comparisons of realistic simulation results, carried out in NS-3, and analytical results show that the proposed delay bounds provide relatively tight approximations for the E2ED in the three alternative architectures for vehicular networks investigated in this paper.