Enhancing VANET connectivity through utilizing autonomous vehicles

Connectivity in vehicular networks is continuously changing due to high mobility of vehicles, causing rapid changes in the network topology. This has a direct negative impact on the throughput and packet transmission delay. Many algorithms and approaches have been proposed to address this problem. However, most of them are not practical due to their dependence on a centralized infrastructure, which are attributed with high cost for installation and maintenance. Vehicular networks are composed of all types of vehicles including autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles. In this paper, we propose addressing the problem of VANET connectivity through controlling the routes and speed of autonomous vehicles according to the density and speed of non-autonomous vehicles. This is achieved through a decentralized cooperative game theory approach that provides a balance between autonomous vehicles' trip duration, and enhancements to the VANET connectivity. We evaluate our proposed approach through extensive simulations using real traffic data, and observe substantial enhancements of up to 46% in the network connectivity using our approach.

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