5G-enabled Hierarchical architecture for software-defined intelligent transportation system

Abstract With the rapid advancement of technology, an increasing number of devices are being connected to the Internet and getting smart. Such advancement brings new challenges in the field of intelligent transportation system (ITS), including transferring of high data rates, providing rapid response system to users, addition of new devices, and their remote configuration. Thus, mobile information systems, along with intelligent multimodal mobility services, cope with such constraints and take significant benefit of the associated technology from emerging information and communication frameworks. Therefore, recent advancement in the field of telecommunication has witnessed increased interest in ITS, especially vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETS). Software-defined networks (SDNs) can also bring advantages to ITS due their flexibility and programmability to the network via their logical and centralized control entity. However, the bandwidth and continuous connection between ITS and SDN is still a challenge owing to the highly mobile nature of VANETS. Therefore, to address this issue, this paper presents a novel concept for enhancing the capabilities of ITS via the newly proposed 5G-based SDN architecture for ITS. The proposed system architecture is based on the following three function layers: sensing layer, relay layer, and core network layer. Continuous accessibility, via flexible and programmable features, is achieved through SDN features. In addition, high data rates and bandwidth are provided by the proposed 5G architecture. The simulation results show that the proposed system architecture achieves better results than the ad-hoc on-demand distance vector routing protocol.