Toward a Totally Distributed Flat Location Service for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Many routing protocols in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) utilize location information to find a route to the destination. However, tracking the location information of other nodes is very challenging in highly dynamic VANETs. We propose a location service which can provide location information with low overhead and low delay. The location service periodically disseminates the location of each vehicle to 3-hop distance for every second with very low overhead. By eliminating location errors by taking account of the velocity of a vehicle, the proposed protocol can provide accurate position information. The location service also provides a lightweight location query mechanism for longer distance destination nodes. We show the effectiveness of the protocol by using theoretical analysis and computer simulations.