Two-Hop Connectivity to the Roadside in a VANET Under the Random Connection Model

Abstract

In this paper, we compute the expected number of vehicles with at least one two-hop path to a fixed roadside unit (RSU) in a multi-hop, one-dimensional vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) where other cars can act as relays. The pairwise channels experience Rayleigh fading in the random connection model, and so exist, with probability function of the mutual distance between the cars, or between the cars and the RSU. We derive exact equivalents for the expected number of cars with a two-hop connection to the RSU when the car density <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\rho$</tex-math></inline-formula> tends to zero and infinity, and determine its behaviour using an infinite oscillating power series in <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\rho$</tex-math></inline-formula> , which is accurate for all regimes. We also corroborate those findings to a realistic situation, using snapshots of actual traffic data. Finally, a normal approximation is discussed for the probability mass function of the number of cars with a two-hop connection to the RSU.