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Survey of MAC Protocols for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

2012; Volume: 2; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.6029/smartcr.2012.04.005

2234-4624

Chan-Ki Park,

Wireless Networks and Protocols

A vehicular ad hoc network is a special kind of mobile ad hoc network, and can be divided into two further types of networks, a vehicle-to-vehicle network or a vehicle-to-infrastructure network. However, unlike existing mobile ad hoc networks, vehicular ad hoc networks have unique characteristics, including high node mobility and a rapidly-changing topology. Vehicular ad hoc networks should be designed to accommodate these characteristics when we design them. To do this, many researchers have proposed Media Access Control protocols to improve the performance. Most of these studies deal with quick message transmission to support the high mobility of nodes, multiple channels for multiple connections in high-density urban node areas, and channel coordination. In this paper, we provide a survey of Media Access Control protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks and classify the existing Media Access Control protocols into the three major categories of time-based, dedicated short-range communication-based, and directional antenna-based. Moreover, we discuss the characteristics of these Media Access Control protocols and show their advantages and disadvantages. In addition we define some open issues and future work related to Media Access Control protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks.