Heterogeneous VLC/RF multi-hop cluster V2V channel allocation algorithm based on equivalent SINR

Abstract

To address low communication quality and limited transmission rate between vehicle nodes in the vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), this paper builds a heterogeneous visible light communication (VLC) and radio frequency (RF) communication multi-hop communication model based on vehicle node clustering, and then a heterogeneous VLC/RF multi-hop cluster vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) channel allocation algorithm based on equivalent signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) (NCAABES) is presented. This algorithm is based on the clustering of vehicle nodes, which introduces the concept of equivalent SINR. The equivalent SINR of the VLC channel between the cluster head (CH) and cluster member (CM) is used as the condition for channel allocation. When the channel between CH and CM is blocked or low quality, the neighboring vehicle between two vehicles is used as a relay node to communicate in a multi-hop way, and the channel with the best SINR is chosen as the current CH–CM or CM–CM communication method. The simulation results show that the SINR of NCAABES in this paper increases by 21.73%, 30.23%, and 70.96% compared to the novel multi-hop clustering scheme based on the weighted virtual distance detection (MCSVDD), the VLC network (VLCnet), and the RF network (RFnet), respectively. And the NCAABES’s bit error rate (BER) is always the lowest compared to MCSVDD, VLCnet, and RFnet, even when the number of vehicles and transmission power change. This algorithm can improve the quality of communication between vehicle nodes, make VANET more efficient, and get a higher transmission rate.