Cognitive radio for vehicular ad hoc networks (CR-VANETs): approaches and challenges
EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking
Cognitive radio for vehicular ad hoc networks (CR-VANETs): approaches and challenges
Kamal Deep Singh 0
Priyanka Rawat
Jean-Marie Bonnin 0
0 Department RSM , Telecom Bretagne, 35510 Cesson Sevigne , France
With growing interest in using cognitive radio (CR) technology in wireless communication systems for vehicles, it is envisioned that future vehicles will be CR-enabled. This paper discusses CR technologies for vehicular networks aimed at improving vehicular communication efficiency. CR for vehicular networks has the potential of becoming a killer CR application in the future due to a huge consumer market for vehicular communications. This paper surveys novel approaches and discusses research challenges related to the use of cognitive radio technology in vehicular ad hoc networks. We review how CR technologies such as dynamic spectrum access, adaptive software-defined radios, and cooperative communications will enhance vehicular communications and, hence, present the potential of transforming vehicle communication in terms of efficiency and safety. Our work is different from existing works in that we provide recent advances and open research directions on applying cognitive radio in vehicular ad hoc networks (CR-VANETs) focusing on architecture, machine learning, cooperation, reprogrammability, and spectrum management as well as QoE optimization for infotainment applications. A taxonomy of recent advances in cognitive radio for vehicular networks is also provided. In addition, several challenges and requirements have been identified. The research on applying CR in vehicular networks is still in its early stage, and there are not many experimental platforms due to their complex setup and requirements. Some related testbeds and research projects are provided at the end.
CR-VANETs; CRVs; Dynamic spectrum allocation; IEEE 802; 11p; Intelligent transportation systems; Survey; Vehicular communication; V2I; V2R; V2V
1 Introduction
Increasing number of vehicles on the road has brought
focus on improving road safety as well as in-vehicle
entertainment. In tune with this demand, we are witnessing
a rise in development of new applications and services
for vehicular environments. Some common examples
include applications for collision avoidance, safety and
traffic monitoring, multimedia streaming, data collection
for smart cities in synergy with wireless sensor networks
[
1
], vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2V), etc.
Consequently, vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) has emerged
as a new technology that can support such emerging
vehicular applications.
A VANET is defined as a spontaneous ad hoc network
formed over vehicles moving on the road. Such a network
can be formed between vehicles with V2V communication
or between vehicles and infrastructure with
vehicle-toinfrastructure (V2I) communication. Such VANETs in
which vehicles can communicate with each other and
also with roadside infrastructure provide a means to
improve road safety by enabling a number of potential
applications for driver assistance, collision warning, traffic
information, and monitoring [
2-6
]. The availability of
various applications will improve road safety and vehicular
environment.
Dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) [
7-10
] is
a generic name for short-range, point-to-point
communication. It is also the name of the older technology mainly
used for vehicle to road communication (e.g., toll gate).
The channels reserved worldwide in the 5.9 GHz band
for such communications are known as DSRC channels.
The IEEE 1609 - Dedicated Short-Range
Communication Working Group is developing standards for wireless
access in vehicular environments (WAVE) and the
communication is based on IEEE 802.11p [
11,12
], which is an
amendment to IEEE 802.11 standard in order to support
communication in dynamic vehicular environments. IEEE
802.11p standardizes the communication aspects related
to physical (PHY) and media access control (MAC).
Currently, the US Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) has allocated 75 MHz and the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) allocated
30 MHz of spectrum in 5.9 GHz band for the
deployment of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) services
[
13,14
]. However, a significant rise in vehicular
applications, especially in urban environments, with several
vehicles, may lead to overcrowding of the band and
thereby resulting in degraded vehicular communication
efficiency for safety applications, as pointed out in [15].
Moreover, not only safety applications, but also growing
demand and usage of in-car entertainment and
information systems comprising bandwidth demanding
multimedia applications (e.g., video streaming) will lead to
congested vehicular networks and spectrum scarcity for
IEEE 802.11p-based vehicular applications [
15
].
In view of this, using cognitive radio (CR)
technology in VANETs will enable more efficient radio spect (...truncated)