Smarter Traffic, Safer Roads: Distributed Adaptive Generation Control for CPMs in VANETs

In response to the rising number of vehicles on the road, autonomous vehicles have become increasingly important, particularly in prioritizing safety. One key development in this area is Collective Perception (CP) services within Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs). These services allow vehicles to share real-time information about their surroundings, including other vehicles and objects, thereby enhancing overall situational awareness. This shared awareness enables vehicles to make better-informed decisions, ultimately reducing the likelihood of accidents. To ensure the effectiveness of CP services, it’s essential to regulate the frequency at which CP messages are generated. This is governed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s (ETSI) Decentralised Congestion Control (DCC) standard. Selecting the appropriate message generation frequency is critical to avoid overloading the network or causing delays in information dissemination. Therefore, in this study we develop a distributed and adaptive mechanism that allows vehicles to autonomously adjust their message frequency based on situational cues while adhering to the ETSI CPM generation thresholds.