Spatially aware packet routing for mobile ad hoc inter-vehicle radio networks

Inter-vehicle communication can become an important building block for ITS telematics applications like safety and warning functions. Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) can serve as a local wireless network for exchanging information between cars for cooperative driver assistance applications. For the routing of data packets in such large-scale MANETs consisting of vehicles on the road, geographic multi-hop packet forwarding is a promising approach. However, a main drawback is that it performs poorly in networks with many topology holes. In this paper, we propose a spatially aware packet routing approach to predict permanent topology holes caused by spatial constraints and avoid them beforehand. This approach is generic and can be used in combination with any existing geographic forwarding protocol as an extension. Our simulations demonstrate that spatial awareness can significantly improve geographic forwarding performance in situations with many permanent topology holes, like in dynamic vehicle networks.