A range-free tracking algorithm in vehicular ad-hoc networks

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET) is a special class of mobile sensor networks (MSN) in which vehicles along the road of a city are mobile sensor nodes. These vehicles communicate to the base-station positioned along side of the road via IEEE 802.15.4 protocol. Base-station can be either mobile or static anchor nodes, depending on its mobility. To build-up the smart city, VANET plays a vital role for enhanced facility and safety of the commuters. In this paper, a distributed and range-free algorithm to track vehicles is discussed. Range-free implies that only connectivity along with audible anchor locations are used in tracking the vehicles. Also, this method is low cost and saves the cost spent on GPS systems in the cars with a small public investment to install the anchors throughout the city. Experimental results of the proposed algorithm in a simulated smart city show improved performance when compared to the conventional methods.