Channel tracking for a multi-antenna ITS system based on vehicle-to-vehicle tunnel measurements

Traffic safety is one of the key applications for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). In order to meet the strict requirements of safety related wireless communication a robust and reliable radio link is necessary. The complex vehicular environment, from a radio propagation viewpoint, represents a challenge for the receiver. We show that even under poor receive conditions the use of multiple antennas and a low-complexity channel tracking algorithm improves the receiver performance. The analysis is performed on data obtained from real-world vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) tunnel measurements in line-of-sight (LOS), non line-of-sight (NLOS), and overtaking scenarios. In this contribution we apply and extend the pilot-assisted channel tracking (PACT) algorithm to a multi antenna receiver for IEEE 802.11p. The achievable improvement of the frame success ratio (FSR) of a two antenna receiver compared to a single antenna receiver is up to 26% (without any channel tracking). Using pilot-assisted channel tracking the FSR is further increased by 12 %.