Physical Layer Performance Comparison of LTE and IEEE 802.11p for Vehicular Communication in an Urban NLOS Scenario

In this paper, a physical (PHY) layer performance comparison for 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and IEEE 802.11p in a realistic urban street intersection scenario is presented. For this approach standard compliant link level simulation tools in combination with ray-optical channel modeling are utilized. Results are analyzed with respect to an intersection collision warning application where a suitable performance metric is derived to analyze the individual performances with respect to the packet error ratio in the downlink. In the absence of a line of sight (LOS) path for a Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) link, the results show promising potential of LTE to outperform a dedicated IEEE 802.11p based communication link even when considering full buffer intercell-interference condition.