Reliability Analysis of DSRC Wireless Communication for Vehicle Safety Applications

The 802.11-p based dedicated short range communication (DSRC) is being seriously considered as a promising wireless technology for enhancing transportation safety and highway efficiency. However, to-date, there is very little research done in characterizing the reliability of DSRC communication based on real-world experimental data, and its effect on the reliability of vehicle safety applications. Our experimental set-up includes a fleet of three vehicles equipped with DSRC communication system, GPS receiver and a number of vehicle safety applications based on vehicle-to-vehicle communication. This paper analyzes the link-level behavior of DSRC vehicle-to-vehicle communication in a wide variety of traffic environments based on real-world experimental data. In addition, we also characterize the application level reliability of DSRC for vehicle safety communication (VSC) system. Based on our experiments, we show that the reliability of DSRC vehicle-to-vehicle communication is adequate since packet drops do not occur in bursts most of the time. We also show that the application level reliability of VSC applications based on DSRC communication is quite satisfactory. Finally, we develop an analytical model to relate application level reliability with communication reliability and VSC system parameter, laying out a clear way to improve reliability of VSC applications under harsh traffic environments. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to characterize the application-level reliability of DSRC communication for VSC applications based on real-world experimental data. Our findings develop a deep insight into significant characteristics of DSRC communication for highly mobile vehicle-to-vehicle wireless network, which will contribute to better design and evaluation of communication protocols for VSC applications in the future