Is IEEE 802.11p V2X Obsolete Before it is Even Deployed?

Abstract

Years after publication of the IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 1609 standards for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs), first production vehicles equipped with conforming communication hardware are about to become available. The standard’s suitability for the hard real-time automotive environment has been debated intensively in recent years. Most publications use synthetic message sizes, while the comprehensive ITS-G5 standard allows for a performance evaluation of IEEE 802.11p in real scenarios. Realistic performance and scalability assessments of current automotive communication hardware can be derived from such an evaluation. Based on these we examine the suitability of the available standards for demanding hard real-time control tasks as cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC).