Design Considerations for Vehicle-to-Vehicle IEEE 802.11p Radar in Collision Avoidance

Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication is expected to make a global impact on improving driver safety by alerting motorists of potential collisions, but the full safety benefit can only be realized if every vehicle is equipped with a transceiver. Motivated to provide collision avoidance for drivers of vehicles only equipped with a V2V transceiver, we develop a framework for using the V2V communication signal simultaneously as a radar without suggesting any changes to the existing V2V standards or spectrum. The theoretical system treats the IEEE 802.11p waveform as a Multi-Frequency Continuous Wave signal to estimate the velocity and range of a vehicular threat not equipped with a V2V transceiver. While spectrum and upper layers of the protocol stack can vary depending on geographic region, the IEEE 802.11p physical layer protocol is adopted globally. Restrictions in waveform design due to IEEE 802.11p standardization are considered and leveraged for enhancing the radar operations. Through a rigorous simulation treatment, the V2V radar system would be capable of detecting a head-on collision with a 35.12% accuracy using only safety message packets. If non-safety packets are included in the detection operation, then up 100% accuracy is achievable.