Sparse Vehicular Sensor Networks for Traffic Dynamics Reconstruction

In this paper, we propose the use of an ad-hoc wireless network formed by a fraction of the passing vehicles (sensor vehicles) to periodically recover their positions and speeds. A static roadside unit (RSU) gathers data from passing sensor vehicles. Finally, the speed/position information or space-time velocity (STV) field is then reconstructed in a data fusion center with simple interpolation techniques. We use widely accepted theoretical traffic models (i.e., car-following, multilane, and overtake-enabled models) to replicate the nonlinear characteristics of the STV field in representative situations (congested, free, and transitional traffic). To obtain realistic packet losses, we simulate the multihop ad-hoc wireless network with an IEEE 802.11p PHY layer. We conclude that: 1) for relevant configurations of both sensor vehicle and RSU densities, the wireless multihop channel performance does not critically affect the STV reconstruction error, 2) the system performance is marginally affected by transmission errors for realistic traffic conditions, 3) the STV field can be recovered with minimal mean absolute error for a very small fraction of sensor vehicles (FSV) ≈ 9%, and 4) for that FSV value, the probability that at least one sensor vehicle transits the spatiotemporal regions that contribute the most to reduce the STV reconstruction error sharply tends to 1. Thus, a random and sparse selection of wireless sensor vehicles, in realistic traffic conditions, is sufficient to get an accurate reconstruction of the STV field.