Use Both Lanes: Multi-Channel Beaconing for Message Dissemination in Vehicular Networks

We study the feasibility of multi-channel beaconing for efficient data dissemination in vehicular networks. Beaconing, i.e., sending small one-hop broadcasts in a periodic fashion, is now a state of the art method for information dissemination in vehicular networks. The main research challenge is to minimize the communication delay while efficiently using the wireless medium without ever overloading the wireless channel. Currently, several approaches to meet these demands can be identified, but they all share the disadvantage of using only a single wireless channel. This is a major bottleneck at high vehicle densities, leading to high delays or packet loss. In this work, we investigate the potentials of a multi-channel approach by extending the delay sensitive and congestion aware Adaptive Traffic Beacon (ATB) protocol to make full use of IEEE 802.11p/1609.4 DSRC/WAVE. We present a novel channel scheduling algorithm and incorporate it into an improved information dissemination protocol. We evaluate our approach in simulations, employing the extended protocol to allow vehicles to dynamically adapt their route to changing traffic conditions. We are able to demonstrate the feasibility of this multi-channel approach, showing that it successfully reduces the channel utilization and observed packet collisions without sacrificing the goodput.