Investigating IEEE 802.11p Communications for Transmitting Basic Safety Messages in Vehicle Platoons on Expressways

Vehicle platooning is a full-of-promise technology for the future of intelligent transportation systems. A key requirement for vehicle platoons is to maintain strong communication between the vehicles to prevent the platoon from splitting. In India, maintaining resilient communications between vehicles is hard due to extensive road networks, challenging conditions, and high traffic volume. While resolving connectivity issues on normal roadways may take time, modern Indian expressways offer potential venues for operating vehicle platoons. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of having resilient vehicle platoon communications over IEEE802.11p and hence, having stable platoons on Indian expressways. We have performed experiments for realistic platoon scenarios on National Expressway-1 and have an extensive analysis of various network parameters. It is evident from the results that Indian expressways could be ventured for vehicle platoon operations using IEEE802.11p.