Distributed fair rate congestion control for vehicular networks

Abstract

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are self-organizing communication networks, which principally consist of vehicles that broadcast beacons with relevant real time traffic information. These continuous exchanges of information allow the development of applications that drastically improve the road traffic safety and efficiency. Such services suffer from network congestion problems when the road traffic density increases. This may cause VANET malfunction, and thus, the increase of hazardous road situations. In this study, we present a family of fully distributed intelligent light-weight congestion control algorithms (executed by each node), i.e., the Distributed Intelligent Fair Rate Adaptation (DIFRA) family. These methods accurately estimate the channel load in a distributed manner and dynamically adapt the beacon rate of each node. Experimental analyses show the effectiveness of DIFRA methods in increasing the amount of data exchanged between the vehicles and the balance in the channel usage, while avoiding network congestion.