Vehicular Communication Systems

VCS are an emerging type of network systems in which vehicles and roadside units are the communicating nodes, providing each other with information, such as safety warnings and traffic information, thereby being more effective in avoiding accidents and traffic congestions due to the cooperative approach.

The two types of nodes in vehicular communication systems, vehicles and roadside stations, are both  Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) devices which work in the 5.9 GHz band with a bandwidth of 75 MHz and approximate range of 1000m.

Technical specifications:

Two categories of draft standards provide outlines for vehicular networks. These standards constitute a category of IEEE standards for a special mode of operation of IEEE 802.11 for vehicular networks called Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE). IEEE 1609 is a family of standards which deals with issues such as management and security of the network:

·         1609.1 -Resource Manager: This standard provides a resource manager for WAVE, allowing communication between remote applications and vehicles.
·         1609.2 -Security Services for Applications and Management Messages
·         1609.3 -Networking Services: This standard addresses network layer issues in WAVE.
·         1609.4 -Multi-channel Operation: This standard deals with communications through multiple channels. 

Applications

Following are the categories of the possible applications of vehicular communication system:

·         Safety
·         Traffic management
·         Driver assistance systems
·         Policing and enforcement
·         Pricing and payments
·         Direction and route optimization
·         Travel-related information
·         General information services
·         Automated highways

Vehicular communications are usually developed as a part of a bigger, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) network. ITS seeks to achieve safety and productivity through intelligent transportation which integrates communication between mobile and fixed nodes. To this end ITS heavily relies on wired and wireless communications.