GeoVanet: A routing protocol for query processing in vehicular networks

In a vehicular ad hoc network VANET, cars can exchange information by using short-range wireless communications. Along with the opportunities offered by vehicular networks, a number of challenges also arise. In particular, most works so far have focused on a push model, where potentially useful data are pushed towards vehicles. The use of pull models, that would allow users to send queries to a set of cars in order to find the desired information, has not been studied in depth. The main challenge for pull models is the difficulty to route the different results towards the query originator in a highly dynamic network where the nodes move very quickly. To solve this issue, we propose GeoVanet, an anonymous and non-intrusive geographic routing protocol which ensures that the sender of a query can get a consistent answer. Our goal is to ensure that the user will be able to retrieve the query results within a bounded time. To prove the effectiveness of GeoVanet, an extensive experimental evaluation has been performed, that proves the interest of the proposal for both rural and urban areas. It shows that up to 80% of the available query results are delivered to the user.