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A Flexible TDMA Overlay Protocol for Vehicles Platooning
Ref: CISTER-TR-181103       Publication Date: 17 to 18, May, 2018

Abstract:
Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) can enable a wide range of vehicle coordination applications such as platooning. A good use of the communication channel is paramount for an adequate quality of service. Currently, IEEE 802.11p is the standard used in VANETs and relies on CSMA/CA, which is prone to collisions that degrade the channel quality. This has led to recent proposals for TDMA-based overlay protocols that synchronize vehicles beacons to prevent or reduce collisions. In this paper, we propose RA-TDMAp that puts together properties of two previous works. On one hand, it allows the nodes in one platoon to remain synchronized even in the presence of interfering traffic, e.g. from other vehicles, by adapting the phase of the TDMA round to escape periodic interference. On the other hand, it reduces channel occupation by having just the leader transmitting with high power, to reach all the platoon at once, while the followers transmit with low power. The order of transmission is such that the leader gathers information from the whole platoon in just one round. We simulated RA-TDMAp in realistic conditions using the PLEXE simulation framework. We show the phase adaptation of the TDMA round and we compare RA-TDMAp to state of the art protocols tailored for platooning, with three networking metrics: channel busy ratio, collisions and safe time ratio, all of which confirm the superiority of RA-TDMAp.

Aqsa Aslam

,

Luís Almeida

,

Frederico Santos

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