Performance Evaluation of MIMO-STBC for Inter-Vehicle Communications in a Shadowing Environment Generated by a Large Vehicle

The present study investigates an inter-vehicle communication (IVC) scheme for safety driving support systems, such as collision avoidance warning systems at intersections. In order to realize high communication reliability, we apply a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) with space-time block coding (STBC) method in the IVC system. We investigate the transmission quality of the method in collisions when making a right turn, as an example of a dangerous situation. A key transmission feature of the MIMO system is determined by radio wave propagation. Therefore, the radio wave propagation at an intersection in this dangerous situation is analyzed by computer simulation using the ray-tracing method and by radio wave measurements in a field experiment. In addition, we propose propagation channel models in a shadowing environment generated by a large vehicle. Finally, we clarify the effectiveness of the proposed MIMO-STBC scheme by computer simulations.