Comparing Localization Performance of IEEE 802.11p and LTE-V V2I Communications

The future of transportation systems is going towards autonomous and assisted driving, aiming to reach full automation. There is huge focus on communication technologies expected to offer vehicular application services, of which most are location-based services. This paper provides a study on localization accuracy limits using vehicle-to-infrastructure communication channels provided by IEEE 802.11p and LTE-V, considering two different vehicular network designs. Real data measurements obtained on our highway testbed are used to model and simulate propagation channels, the position of base stations, and the route followed by the vehicle. Cramer-Rao lower bound, geometric dilution of precision, and least square error for time difference of arrival localization technique are investigated. Based on our analyses and findings, LTE-V outperforms IEEE 802.11p. However, it is apparent that providing larger signal bandwidth dedicated to localization, with network sites positioned at both sides of the highway, and considering the geometry between vehicle and network sites, improve vehicle localization accuracy.