Smart Radios for Smart Vehicles: Cognitive Vehicular Networks

This article discusses the current state-of-the-art research on CRV networks. While it is envisaged that this technology will help to realize high-bandwidth multimedia applications, the research on CRV networks is still at a preliminary stage. The spectrum management functions proposed for general-purpose CR networks will need to be revisited by taking into account the characteristics of the vehicular environment, such as the role of the mobility, and the cooperation possibilities. The lack of realistic test beds and of simulation tools is a serious limitation, and effort needs to be invested in building such evaluation platforms that can provide realistic insights on the performance of CRV networks before the potential for this technology can be fully realized.