Vehicle-To-Vehicle Communications: Reception And Interference Of Safety-Critical Messages

A robust exchange of messages between vehicles via radio communication represents a key problem of vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) research. Environmental influences and the multitude of communicating nodes result in challenging communication conditions that have to be taken into account when assessing the potential benefit of VANETs for traffic safety and efficiency applications. In this paper we discuss an appropriate modeling of three influencing factors on the communication behavior to establish a basis for credible simulation results. In detail, we analyze the effects of fast-fading, capturing, and cumulative noise on vehicular communications and illustrate their considerable influence on a simulation's outcome. As a second contribution, we provide an empirical model for the probability of packet reception that is based on the proposed simulation methodology. The model thus allows to determine credible simulation results without being dependent on the complexity of detailed simulations. The saved computational effort facilitates the assessment of VANETs in large-scale scenarios and the consideration of communication specifics in the design process.