Multipath Scheduling in Heterogeneous Vehicular Networks

Currently, there are two major technologies for vehicular communication that compete for predominance: ITS-G5, respectively, IEEE 802.11p is based on Wifi and implements an ad-hoc network with broadcast communication in a local radius of a few hundred meters using decentralized coordination among the participants. In contrast, cellular networks, currently LTE in the 4th generation, the 5th generation is in development, uses centrally coordinated point-to-point connections via an infrastructure network. In near future, several radio access technologies are potential suitable for future vehicular communication, such as millimetre wave(mm-wave) and vehicular visible light communication (VVLC). The differences of the technologies directly impact their fitness for different applications: e.g., an intersection assistant requires real-time information about all traffic participants in the local surrounding, whereas a traffic surveillance application centrally aggregates samples of floating car data that cover preferably the entire road network. In order to get the advantages of all technologies, one major solution/challenge is transferring data using multiple technologies simultaneously, while maintaining a single connection from the perspective of the application.

The subject of this doctoral research project is the data traffic scheduling in multi-homed communications, with respect to selected vehicle-to-X applications. In particular, the parallel use of Wifi-based and cellular communication is investigated within our emulation framework. For verification, SocialCars operates a car with measurement equipment for the respective technologies.