Design and Prototyping of a Software Defined Vehicular Networking

Abstract

The next frontier for automotive revolution will be connected vehicles and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) that will transform a vehicle into a much more than a smartphone on wheels. The fifth-generation (5G) networks are expected to meet various communication requirements for vehicles. This will enable the creation of a large market of services with the exploitation of the generated data from in-vehicle sensors. The “cloudification” of vehicular network resources through Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new network paradigm. A critical part of SDN is the transport of control plane. Therefore, it is crucial for SDN-based On-Board Units, i.e., SDN switches, to keep a robust connection with the SDN controller. In the literature, several works propose SDN-based architectures for vehicular communication. However, nearly all performance evaluations are based on theory or simulation results. This paper proposes a design of a complete Software Defined Vehicular Network prototype. At first, the SDN-based backbone is tested in real hardware composed of OpenFlow switches. Next, the SDN-based Radio Access is tested based on WiFi Access Points that support Click Modular Router and OpenvSwitch/OpenFlow. Finally, a Single Board Computer is used as On-Board Unit (OBU) in which are implemented OpenFlow switch functionalities. Several SDN controllers are used to implement routing algorithms to transport vehicles control plane through the backbone, to process information received from vehicles to predict topology and compute routing path for V2V and V2I communication, and finally to manage mobility schemes. Communication quality is evaluated by measuring throughput, delay, processing time, handoff latency and packet loss.