COLLECTION OF DEDICATED INFORMATION IN VEHICULAR AD HOC NETWORKS

In recent years, the application of mobile ad hoc n etworking among vehicles has become an important research field for the automotive industr y. Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are formed by vehicles that are equipped with wirel ess communication devices based on the standard IEEE 802.11 Wireless-LAN. Embedding mobile ad hoc network devices into vehicles will pave the way for future Advanced Driv er Assistance Systems. These could be used to improve road safety and comfort for the dri ver as well as the passengers. Consider the situation in which you drive into an unfamiliar cit y. Your vehicle navigation system checks the traffic conditions on-demand and directs you quickl y through the city avoiding busy roads and road blocks. In the meanwhile your vehicle navigati on system requests parking information in the vicinity of your destination, so that you can d rive straight to a free parking space. In this paper we discuss the feasibility of dedicated infor mation collection through parameterized queries in VANETs. As an application example, we an alyze the use of personal messages to guide vehicles towards suitable parking spaces avai lable nearest to their destination area. The evaluation shows that it is possible to use a VANET to collect on-demand information from a target area within a city. To prove this a search s trategy is proposed, implemented and evaluated in an interactive and realistic simulatio n environment.