Context assisted routing protocols for inter-vehicle wireless communication

The need for "information anywhere and anytime" has become the reason for the expansion of Web, Internet technology, wireless communication and portable computing devices. Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) have the potential of providing the ability to exchange information between vehicles in order to assist the drivers in making efficient route planning decisions and in order to better balance traffic around highly populated urban areas. With this in mind we will present: (1) a mobile network partitioning method that supports the collection, dissemination and storing of traffic context data like road conditions, vehicle density, average vehicle speed and roadside facilities, all used at the application layer for trip planning, and driving warning systems as well as at the network layer in aiding the routing decisions, (2) a context assisted routing (CAR) protocol that has context awareness represented by the static road infrastructure and dynamic traffic information (3) a predictive location updating algorithm.