SIMCO2: simulator for performance evaluation of vehicle-beacon and inter-vehicle communication protocols (media access/knowledge-based routing)

An integrated simulation tool, called SIMCO2 (simulation of intelligent maneuvering and communications), for the performance evaluation and verification of short-range vehicle-beacon and intervehicle communication protocols and new road transport informatics (RTI) applications is presented. A realistic mobility model is used to simulate the movement of vehicles (private cars, trucks, buses, etc.) under various environmental conditions (multilane motorways/rural roads with sectionwise speed limits, intersections, etc.) with online graphical display. Based on this model, recently developed communication protocols (media access, logical link control, routing, etc.), the exchange of relevant data between vehicles and roadside beacons, and new RTI applications can be simulated very accurately for the variety of realistic traffic scenarios listed above. SIMCO2 allows one to evaluate the protocol performance of new communication protocols developed for mobile communication networks related to DRIVE, MOBILITY 2000, PROMETHEUS, RACE, etc., and could therefore be a valuable tool for the system design of these networks