A two-purpose peer-to-peer structure for vehicle navigating and traffic information disseminating in vehicular networks

In this paper, a two purpose structure to simultaneously determine the shortest travel time path for a moving vehicle and efficient packet dissemination for traffic information messages has been presented. In order to reduce traveling time, vehicles are directed to the paths with lower density. Given that, such paths have a higher risk in radio coverage partitioning; it is more likely to reduce successful traffic information packets delivery. Therefore, in order to overcome the network partitioning problem, a solution is sending traffic packets from such dense routes which will increase successful rate on sending messages. For this purpose, it is necessary to assess vehicles distribution in different regions periodically according to the real-time traffic conditions and then sending traffic packets from the routes with higher radio connectivity and directing vehicles to paths with lower density. For this reason, a peer-to-peer layer has been developed on top of a vehicular ad-hoc network. Important characteristics of the developed peer-to-peer network are high speed, simplicity and low overhead in construction of peer-to-peer layer, as well as the optimal use of limited bandwidth of vehicular network, a good performance in low penetration environments and proper efficiency in congested urban conditions that cause to a lower travel time.