Measurement-based modeling of packet inter-reception time in presence of radio channel congestion

In this paper, we study the performance of the beaconing mechanism underlying active safety vehicular applications in presence of different levels of channel congestion. The importance of this study lies in the fact that channel congestion is considered a major factor influencing communication performance in vehicular networks, and that ours is the first investigation of the effects of congestion based on extensive, real-world measurements. We present a set of measurement-based models of the packet inter-reception time, and we show how these models can be used to estimate the application-level benefits, expressed in terms of increased reliability, of congestion control and of multi-hop propagation of situational information.