Fully Reactive Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation for VANET Devices

Abstract

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are meant to be the next big step in the direction of safer road transport. They provide applications for an information exchange between vehicles based on ETSI ITS G5. The exchanged information can be used to make current driver assistance systems more reliable if the communication is trustworthy in any driving situation. To ensure this, hardware and software must be verified in as many driving situations as possible. This paper presents a holistic approach for testing VANET devices and the applications running on them in a Hardware in the Loop (HIL) environment. The network simulation tool OMNeT ++ and the VANET model Artery have been employed to achieve this goal. Using this approach, it is possible to monitor the behaviour of the Device Under Test (DUT) during a wide range of test scenarios. Also, current limitations of this approach which are mostly caused by the discrete event behaviour of OMNeT++ are discussed.