A Critical Assessment of C-V2X Resource Allocation Scheme for Platooning Applications

V2X stands for vehicular to everything communications, but its definition is so vast that it does not even encompass a specific transmission technology. Up to a few years ago the only standardized technology for V2X was 802.11p and the protocol suites built on top of it like DSRC and ITS-GS. In recent years, however, Cellular-V2x defined both for LTE and for the upcoming 5G New Radio interfaces is drawing a lot of attention and seems to have a broad support. C-V2X standardization however, has been slow, but most of all lacks the elegant simplicity of 802.11p, so that performance analysis of automotive applications on top of C-V2X are still limited. This work presents initial results for platooning applications, highlighting the presence of severe impairments in the resource allocation schemes of C-V2X Out of Coverage modes that, if not corrected in future releases of the standards may hamper the development of this promising technology.