Evaluation of Routing Protocols for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks in City Traffic Scenarios

Vehicular multi-hop ad hoc networks (VANETs) are an important technology for future developments of vehicular communication systems. Vehicles are able to exchange information within these networks without the need of installing any infrastructure along the roadside. VANETs can be used to improve the road safety by e.g. warning drivers about accidents in front of the road or to provide Internet access to the passengers via gateways along the road. However, the routing of data packets through the VANET is very complex since network topology and communication conditions may vary heavily. To evaluate the performance of routing protocols in urban traffic scenarios, we developed a realistic city mobility model, which was used to examined the performance of AODV, DSR, FSR and TORA on the basis of network simulations. We found out that TORA is completely unsuitable for vehicular environments, whereas FSR, DSR and AODV showed promising results in the city scenarios.