Reliable and Effcient Information Dissemination in Intermittently Connected Vehicular Adhoc Networks

Many applications of vehicular adhoc networks (VANET) to intelligent transportation systems require reliable, bandwidth-efficient dissemination of traffic and road information via adhoc network technology. This is a difficult task since intervehicular networks often lack continuous end-to-end connectivity and are characterised by large variations in node density. In this paper we introduce a new epidemic protocol for information dissemination in highly dynamic and intermittently connected VANET. We show through realistic simulations in highway traffic that our protocol is capable of reliable and efficient information dissemination in VANET in the face of frequent network fragmentation and large density variations. In addition to VANET, our proposed algorithm may find applications in the context of disruption tolerant networks (DTN).