LSSDVC: A Location-based VANET Caching Method with Semi-SDN Paradigm

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) are anticipated to support a wide array of future applications, including accident warnings, traffic information exchange, and real-time navigation updates. However, as VANETs have evolved from Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET), traditional communication methods in VANET face significant challenges due to the limited signal transmission range. Moreover, the highly dynamic topology of VANETs further complicates communication, requiring additional overhead for the successful delivery of communication packets to their intended destination nodes. This overhead can significantly impair both network performance and efficiency. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a novel caching method for VANETs that leverages the physical state of communication nodes and the popularity of data items, within the framework of the Semi-Software Defined Networking (Semi-SDN) paradigm. The proposed method, termed Location and Popularity-based Semi-SDN Vehicular Caching (LSSDVC), seeks to reduce communication overhead and enhance system Quality of Service (QoS). By integrating the Semi-SDN communication model into traditional VANETs and jointly considering the physical state of vehicle nodes and the popularity of data, LSSDVC improves the efficiency of data dissemination. Empirical experiments demonstrate that the proposed caching method outperforms existing benchmarks in terms of link load, delay, and one-hop hit ratio in both urban and highway environments.