The general vehicular networking system (VNS), where the vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is integrated with hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), enables a wide range of intelligent transportation system (ITS) applications. With different visions on VANETs, most of the existing studies provide case-specific solutions in an incoherent manner, which can hardly be integrated into an effective system. This project aims at developing a reliable, energy-efficient, and secure VNS with a synergetic approach through five complementary research tracks: infrastructure optimization, protocol design for reliable networking performance, energy-efficient VNS, security and privacy provisioning, and virtual-field testbed development. This project is expected to significantly advance the state of the art of VANET research by addressing some fundamental research issues. Analytical models are developed to study the road-side infrastructure deployment, networking protocols and control algorithms for optimal performance, considering the complex issues of mobility, interference, and data traffic dynamics. The throughput-optimal control in a multi-radio multi-channel context with dynamic network topology is studied to improve the throughput over a multi-hop vehicular network. Energy-efficient solutions are pursued by exploiting the interplay between the VNET and HEVs. Scalable security protocols with small computation and communication overhead are developed to provision security and privacy in VANET.
The proposed research seamlessly integrates research and education activities in the areas of optimization, probability and random process, graph theory, wireless networking, HEV technologies, as well as computer simulations. The research proposed in this project has a good potential to be transformed into practical protocols or control algorithms for VANETs.
