A collaboration-based hybrid vehicular sensor network architecture

An intelligent transportation system aims to make roads safer and less congested. Compared to traditional sensor networks, this recently emerged sensor network is not restricted by the power supply and the storage space. These sensors are equipped with GPS devices and large amount flash memory cards. Under such environment, an effective and efficient architecture for data collection and data exchange is more important. This paper is concerned with such an system framework consisting of static road side sensors and mobile vehicular sensors. Road side sensors are distributed according to the road segmentation for collecting data from mobile vehicular sensors passing by. While mobile sensors on vehicles monitor the road condition and send this information to road side sensors and to mobile neighbors when they are close enough. This paper presents a detailed data collection, storage and exchange mechanism for vehicular sensor networks and addresses the congestion problem raised by multiple mobile sensor users when accessing to a single road side sensor at the same time. The simulation results show our system can reduce 42% traffic jams and save the drivers for up to 36.6% total time.