Multi-hop Broadcasting in VANETs Integrating Intra-flow and Inter-flow Network Coding

Multi-hop data dissemination in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is very important for the realization of collision avoidance systems and other many interesting applications. However, designing an efficient data dissemination protocol in VANETs has been a challenging issue due to vehicle movements, limited wireless resources and lossy characteristics of wireless communication. In this paper, we propose a protocol which employs intra-flow and inter-flow network coding to reduce the protocol overhead as compared to traditional protocols. The protocol also can improve the packet reception probability at the receiver nodes by using the network coding. Therefore, the protocol can provide a lightweight and reliable solution for data dissemination in VANETs. We use theoretical analysis and computer simulations to show the advantage of the proposed protocol over other existing alternatives.