Testbed for wireless vehicle communication: a simulation approach based on three-phase traffic theory

Abstract

A testbed for wireless vehicle communication based on a microscopic model in the framework of three-phase traffic theory is presented. In this testbed, vehicle motion in traffic flow and analyses of a vehicle communication channel access based on IEEE 802.11e mechanisms, radio propagation modeling, message reception characteristics as well as all other effects associated with ad-hoc networks are integrated into a three-phase traffic flow model. Thus simulations of both vehicle ad-hoc network and traffic flow are integrated onto a single testbed and perform simultaneously. This allows us to make simulations of ad-hoc network performance as well as diverse scenarios of the effect of wireless vehicle communications on traffic flow during simulation times, which can be comparable with real characteristic times in traffic flow. In addition, the testbed allows us to simulate cooperative vehicle motion together with various traffic phenomena, like traffic breakdown at bottlenecks. Based on simulations of this testbed, some statistical features of ad-hoc vehicle networks as well as the effect of C2C communication on increase in the efficiency and safety of traffic are studied.