A beaconing-based roadside services discovery protocol for vehicular ad hoc networks

Abstract

Recently, research on vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) has gained momentum all over the world. Theseemerging networks promise to make our driving experience more efficient, safer, comfortable, and enjoyable. VANETshave the potential to support a wide range of interesting applications. One such promising application area is thediscovery of roadside services on the highways. Drivers need an efficient way to find these services during their journeys.However, due to the unique features of VANETs, the design and implementation of such applications is a challengingtask. In this paper, we propose an application layer beaconing-based roadside services discovery protocol (RSDP). TheRSDP is a lightweight, beacon-based protocol, which uses store-carry-and-response technique and opportunistic vehicleto-vehicle communication. Our solution is efficient for business owners, as the vehicles move from one place to another tocarry service advertisements and opportunistically forward them to other vehicles upon request. Our system architectureis fully based on the VANET standard protocols stack. We performed extensive simulations to evaluate the performanceof RSDP in a multilane highway scenario. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution in terms of servicesdiscovery.