A Solicitation-based IEEE 802.11p MAC Protocol for Roadside to Vehicular Networks

Recently, vehicular networks have begun to attract much attention in industry as well as academia. In particular, IEEE 802.11-based solutions for vehicular networks are also investigated by IEEE 802.11p. As the original IEEE 802.11 standard is designed only for little mobility, the IEEE 802.11p working group should address important issues such as frequent disconnection and handoff. We first introduce new challenges with which IEEE 802.11p is faced, and then propose a new solicitation-based operation mode for IEEE 802.11p, in which the transmissions of data frames are initiated only by users. Throughput analysis reveals that our proposal achieve the high and stable throughput, irrespectively of the number of contending and moving-away stations.