Tight coupling benefits of GNSS with VANETs

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) are one emerging type of network that will enable a broad range of applications such as public safety, traffic management, traveler information support, and entertainment. Whether wireless access may be asynchronous or synchronous (respectively as in the upcoming IEEE 802.11p Standard or in some alternative emerging solutions), a synchronization among nodes is required. Moreover, the information on position is needed to let vehicular services work and to correctly forward the messages. As a result, timing and positioning are a strong prerequisite of VANETs. Also the diffusion of enhanced GNSS Navigators paves the way to the integration between GNSS receivers and VANET transceivers. This presents an analysis on the potential benefits coming from a tight-coupling between the two: this dissertation is meant to show to what extent Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) services could benefit from the proposed architecture.