Multi-Layer Problems and Solutions in VANETs: A Review

Abstract

The Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) technology supports the vehicular communications through Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) Communication, by operating at 5.9 GHz band (U.S. Standard). The Physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) Layer are defined by the IEEE 802.11p, while the IEEE 1609 family of standards define the Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment (WAVE); a suite of communication and security standards in the Vehicular Area Networks (VANETs). There has been a lot of research regarding several challenges in VANETs, from spectrum utilization to multichannel operation and from routing to security issues. The aim of all is to improve the performance of the network and support scalability in VANETs; which is defined as the ability of the network to handle the addition of vehicles (nodes) without suffering noticeable degradation of performance or administrative overhead. In this paper, we aim to highlight multilayer challenges concerning the performance of the VANETs, the already proposed solutions, and the possible future work.