Coupling of simulators for the investigation of car-to-x communication aspects

Accompanied by the continuous progression of the maturity of car-to-x communication protocols and corresponding system architectures, the need for integrated network simulation approaches which consider realistic channel modeling on the one hand and appropriate mobility models on the other hand becomes more and more observable. Moreover, in order to analyze the impacts of car-to-x applications on the behavior of vehicles, an interconnection of different simulation tools is needed. In this paper, a concept for the interconnection of network, channel and road traffic simulations is presented. This concept relies on network simulation based on the open source simulator OMNeT++ and the INET Framework, which utilizes a coupling to the well-known road traffic simulator SUMO. In order to characterize the radio channel, an interconnection between OMNeT++ and a ray optical propagation model is being established. Furthermore, some preliminary simulation results are presented which serve as a proof of concept.