The Vehicular Social Network (VSN)-Based Sharing of Downloaded Geo Data Using the Credit-Based Clustering Scheme

This paper proposed a clustering scheme named as the credit-based clustering (CBC) scheme for point of interests' (POIs') geo data sharing in vehicular social network (VSN). In the proposed CBC scheme, a number of vehicles that belong to the same VSN can form a cluster to download POIs' geo data when they are approaching to a new set of POIs. One vehicle is selected as the cluster head to download POIs' geo data using its cellular network and shares the downloaded POIs' geo data to its cluster members using IEEE 802.11p network. This paper 1) uses GPS to get vehicles' locations to calculate the timing of triggering the clustering process, 2) proposes a clustering method to organize a group of vehicles that belong to the same VSN and are proximate with each other for a while during their touring to become a cluster, and 3) deploys a credit scheme to evaluate the credit that the cluster head can get and each cluster member needs to pay to encourage all vehicles to share POIs' geo data. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can achieve the goal of fairness, the higher successful ratio of the complete sharing of downloaded POIs' geo data and the better receiving efficiency.