An efficient beacon rate adaptation scheme for vehicular networks

In Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs), vehicles are required to periodically broadcast and exchange beacon messages to ensure the cooperative awareness of vehicles in the vicinity. This knowledge is a critical item for safety applications in ITSs. Due to the fast movement of vehicles, the beacon broadcasting frequency (i.e. beacon rate) is related to the accuracy of the knowledge. However, using a very high beacon rate may consume too much channel bandwidth and thus lead to severe deterioration of network performance. To cope with this problem, in this paper we propose an efficient beacon rate adaptation scheme. It is dependent on a wide range of parameters, which are divided into two metrics: channel load and information utility. This scheme is evaluated in our simulation platform, comprised of VISSIM for realistic traffic simulation and Network Simulator 3 for inter-vehicle communication. The simulation results clearly demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.