Vehicular ad hoc network

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are created by applying the principles of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) – the spontaneous creation of a wireless network for data exchange – to the domain of vehicles. VANETs were first mentioned and introduced in 2001 under "car-to-car ad hoc mobile communication and networking" applications, where networks can be formed and information can be relayed among cars. It was shown that vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside communications architectures will co-exist in VANETs to provide road safety, navigation, and other roadside services. VANETs are a key part of the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) framework. Sometimes, VANETs are referred as Intelligent Transportation Networks

While, in the early 2000s, VANETs were seen as a mere one-to-one application of MANET principles, they have since then developed into a field of research in their own right. By 2015, the term VANET became mostly synonymous with the more generic term inter-vehicle communication (IVC), although the focus remains on the aspect of spontaneous networking, much less on the use of infrastructure like Road Side Units (RSUs) or cellular networks.

VANETs support a wide range of applications – from simple one hop information dissemination of, e.g., cooperative awareness messages (CAMs) to multi-hop dissemination of messages over vast distances. Most of the concerns of interest to mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are of interest in VANETs, but the details differ. Rather than moving at random, vehicles tend to move in an organized fashion. The interactions with roadside equipment can likewise be characterized fairly accurately. And finally, most vehicles are restricted in their range of motion, for example by being constrained to follow a paved highway.

Example applications of VANETs are:

VANETs can use any wireless networking technology as their basis. The most prominent are short range radio technologies like WLAN (either standard Wi-Fi and ZigBee. In addition, cellular technologies or LTE can be used for VANETs.The latest technology for this wireless networking is visible light communication[VLC](Infrared transmission and reception).

Prior to the implementation of VANETs on the roads and into cars, realistic simulations of VANETs using simulators are necessary.

Major standardization of VANET protocol stacks is taking place in the U.S., in Europe, and in Japan, corresponding to their dominance in the automotive industry.

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