A Comparative Study of Secure Wireless Connectivity in Vehicular Ad hoc Networking

Abstract

A vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a special type of wireless network that creates a connection for mobile vehicles/users on the road. VANETs are expected to pave the way for various applications that exchange upcoming traffic information to enhance traffic safety and reduce traffic accidents and traffic jams, which in turn leads to reduced fuel consumption, while also offering infotainment applications for traffic efficiency and comfort, among others. VANETs involve different types of vehicles on the road, both regular and emergency vehicles, and different types of traffic messages. In a VANET, all these different vehicles try to stay connected to exchange traffic messages. Existing systems for forwarding upcoming traffic information introduce substantial delays, which is unacceptable for time-critical emergency messaging. Hence, this thesis presents a comparative study of different short-range wireless technologies, namely Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1), ZigBee (802.15.4), cellular and Dedicated Short Range Communication (IEEE 80-2.11p), using on-board devices that are suitable for VANETs. This work considers scenarios with vehicles traveling in the same direction as well as in opposite directions to examine connectivity at low to high relative speeds. This thesis also considers the time left for communication after a successful connection setup and successful encryption. Furthermore, the thesis explores the adaption of Contention Window (CW) sizes to offer higher transmission opportunities for time-sensitive messages in VANETs. The simulation results are included to allow the performance of the proposed analysis to be evaluated.