Modeling vanet deployment in urban settings

The growing interest in wireless Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) has prompted greater research into simulation models that better reflect urban VANET deployments. Still, we lack a systematic understanding of the required level of simulation details in modeling various real-world urban constraints. In this work, we developed a series of simulation models that account for street layout, traffic rules, multilane roads, acceleration-deceleration, and RF attenuation due to obstacles. Using real and controlled synthetic maps, we evaluated the sensitivity of the simulation results toward these details. Our results indicate that the delivery ratio and packet delays in VANETs are more sensitive to the clustering effect of vehicles at intersections and their acceleration/deceleration. The VANET performance appears to be only marginally affected by the simulation of multiple lanes and careful synchronization at traffic signals. We also found that the performance in dense VANETs improves significantly when routing decisions are limited to a wireless backbone of mesh nodes, whereas in sparse VANETs, performance improves when vehicles also participate in ad hoc routing. Finally, through measurement and analysis of signal strengths around urban city blocks, we show that the effect of signal attenuation due to physical obstacles can potentially be parameterized in simulations. Our work provides a starting point for further understanding and development of more accurate VANET simulation model.