Deterministic Propagation Modeling for Intelligent Vehicle Communication in Smart Cities.

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Science
• Transportation Engineering

Background:

• Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are crucial for Smart Cities and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), enabling applications like pollution reduction and accident prevention.
• Existing research on Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication radio channel characterization lacks a deterministic approach for urban environments.
• Accurate understanding of urban radio propagation phenomena requires complementary deterministic models alongside theoretical and empirical ones.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and utilize a deterministic computational tool for analyzing urban radio propagation in VANETs.
• To investigate the effects of vehicle movement on multipath components in V2I and V2V communications.
• To evaluate network parameters like throughput, packet loss, and jitter under various urban radio propagation conditions.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of an in-house 3D Ray-Launching algorithm to model large-scale and small-scale urban radio propagation.
• Analysis of radio propagation phenomena, incorporating the impact of vehicle movement on multipath components.
• Conducting experimental measurements for V2I and V2V links to obtain network parameters.

Main Results:

• The study quantifies the impact of key factors including distance, frequency, transmitter (TX) antenna location, obstacles, and vehicle speed on radio propagation.
• Vehicle movement significantly affects multipath components, influencing communication channel characteristics.
• Experimental data validates the simulation results, providing insights into network performance metrics.

Conclusions:

• Deterministic modeling using 3D ray-launching provides a more accurate understanding of urban radio propagation for VANETs.
• The findings are essential for effective radio-planning and the deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and urban Road Side Units (RSUs).
• Optimizing V2I and V2V communication requires careful consideration of environmental and dynamic factors affecting radio wave propagation.