Relay vehicle based access network selection scheme for Vehicular Ad Hoc Network

In recent years, Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) has attracted considerable attention both from academia and industry. In VANET, multiple access technologies such as cellular system, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) are integrated to support the service requirements of vehicular users. In the case that a vehicle is in the overlapped coverage area of multiple access technologies, it may select one suitable technology for accessing. Furthermore, a relay vehicle (RV) based communication mode can be applied so that the communication area of a particular access network can be extended and the system throughput can be increased. The selection for specific access technology is of particular importance in VANET for it may affect both system performance and user Quality of Service (QoS) significantly. In this paper, we propose an accessing selection scheme for VANET application scenario with RV-based communication be accessible. A three-dimensional Markov chain is modeled to characterize the proposed network access scheme. Detail performance analysis for the network selection scheme is conducted and the numerical results shows that the proposed scheme offers better blocking probability and dropping rate of vertical handoff calls comparing to the traditional access method.