VANET link characteristics and analysis in urban and suburban scenarios

In this paper we present empirical results from a study, examining the effects of environmental diversity on vehicle-to-vehicle link in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). And packet loss rate (PLR) and received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of the wireless link are measured. The results of the measurement indicate that environment affects the quality of the wireless link in VANET greatly; the average of the PLR in suburban scenario is lower than that in urban scenario; the signal strength is not closely relevant to the quality of wireless link and the variance tendency of the possibility of packet loss burst length (PLBL) is same as that of the average of the PLR. The results are important for the quality prediction of wireless link and the protocol design of VANET.