Causality-Sensitive Scheduling to Reduce Latency in Vehicle-to-Vehicle Interactions

Area of Science:

• Vehicular communication networks
• Wireless communication systems
• Network latency analysis

Background:

• Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is crucial for autonomous driving and vehicle platooning.
• Unaccounted causality in sidelink scheduling can lead to significant and persistent communication latency spikes.
• These latency issues pose a threat to the safety and efficiency of time-critical V2V applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify the root cause of dominant sidelink scheduling delays in bi-directional V2V communication.
• To propose and validate a solution that mitigates latency spikes by incorporating causality.
• To enhance the applicability of 5G sidelink for safety-critical vehicle interactions.

Main Methods:

• Real-life measurements of bi-directional V2V communication latency.
• Analysis of sidelink scheduling mechanisms and their impact on causality.
• Development of a causality-aware constraint for resource alignment between communicating vehicles.
• Experimental validation using commercial V2X devices.

Main Results:

• Latency in V2V communication is significantly impacted by sidelink scheduling delay when causality is ignored.
• Observed latency spikes can persist for several seconds, compromising real-time applications.
• The proposed causality-aware constraint effectively eliminates these detrimental latency spikes.
• Measurements confirm the removal of latency spikes on commercial V2X devices.

Conclusions:

• Addressing causality in sidelink scheduling is essential for reliable V2V communication.
• The developed constraint ensures resource alignment, preventing latency spikes.
• This solution enhances the suitability of 5G sidelink for time-sensitive vehicular interactions.
• Improved V2V communication latency is critical for advancing autonomous driving and platooning safety.