A novel cooperative MAC for broadcasting in clustering VANETs

In VANETS, a variety of services can be provided, including safety-related applications, traffic management and user infotainment services. Out of all these applications, safety-related applications are the most important ones and they mainly depend on the broadcast service. However, it is a challenging task to provide a reliable broadcast in VANETs, because of the mobility of vehicles and the unreliability of wireless channels. On the other hand, cooperative communication has been proved effective to mitigate wireless channel impairments and increase the reliability of communications. In this paper, a cooperative MAC for broadcasting is proposed in clustering VANETs. This MAC can improve the reliability of broadcasting. The performance of this MAC is verified through mathematical analysis and simulations.