WLAN-WiMAX Double-Technology Routing for Vehicular Networks

In this paper, we propose a novel routing protocol, WLAN-WiMAX Double-Technology Routing (WWDTR), for routing packets in the heterogeneous vehicular network. Any given route in the protocol can be generally formed of a combination of WLAN and WiMAX hops. WWDTR uses the position-based routing approach over the parts of the route in which packets are forwarded via WLAN radios, in order to handle relatively fast changes of the topology with respect to the shorter transmission ranges of WLAN-enabled vehicles. On the other hand, topology-based routing is employed over the parts of the route in which packets are forwarded via WiMAX radios, given the more stable routes comprised of WiMAX-enabled vehicles, thus overall yielding a hybrid routing scheme. The route selection logic takes both operators´ and subscribers´ preferences such as QoS and network utilization into account. Furthermore, we propose network architecture to facilitate forwarding packets towards the access network of a given operator over routes that partly utilize relaying over other operators´ links. To the best of our knowledge, WWDTR is the first multi-technology multi-operator routing solution for heterogeneous vehicular networks.