An information propagation scheme for VANETs

A goal in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is to enable the dissemination of traffic and road conditions such as local congestion and surface ice as detected by independently moving vehicles. This activity known as information warning functions is useful for vehicles on the highway and enables early reaction. This problem can be described as the directional propagation of information originating from linearly-distributed mobile nodes on a rectilinear plane. By using limited-range packet radios and attribute-based routing, we are able to isolate vehicular from network traffic and permit directional propagation of messages outward from the point of origin. For example, it is desirable to propagate the occurrence of congestion created by an accident in both the forward and backward directions on a highway. We assume the use of multi-hop routing in clusters of connected vehicles to achieve a propagation rate that exceeds the speeds of individual carrier vehicles. We characterize the bounds of information propagation under various traffic patterns and describe a new technique and algorithm that can achieve these limits. We also show an implementation of the dissemination algorithm as a routing protocol using a combination of MANET (mobile ad hoc networking) and DTN (delay tolerant networking) methodologies.