Real-Time Communication Support for Cooperative, Infrastructure-Based Traffic Safety Applications

Abstract

The implementation of ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) services offers great potential to improve the level of safety, efficiency and comfort on our roads. Although cooperative traffic safety applications rely heavily on the support for real-time communication, the Medium Access Control (MAC) mechanism proposed for the upcoming IEEE 802.11p standard, intended for ITS applications, does not offer deterministic real-time support, that is, the access delay to the common radio channel is not upper bounded. To address this problem, we present a framework for a vehicle-to-infrastructure-based (V2I) communication solution extending IEEE 802.11p by introducing a collision-free MAC phase assigning each vehicle an individual priority based on its geographical position, its proximity to potential hazards and the overall road traffic density. Our solution is able to guarantee the timely treatment of safety-critical data, while minimizing the required length of this real-time MAC phase and freeing bandwidth for best-effort services (targeting improved driving comfort and traffic efficiency). Furthermore, we target fast connection setup, associating a passing vehicle to an RSU (Road Side Unit), and proactive handover between widely spaced RSUs. Our real-time MAC concept is evaluated analytically and by simulation based on a realistic task set from a V2I highway merge assistance scenario.