Resilient clustering for the ETSI Vulnerable Road User Awareness basic service

The VRU Awareness Basic Service, part of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute protocol, aims to enhance traffic safety by mitigating accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. A significant challenge lies in the clustering VRU Awareness Message to prevent network congestion while ensuring reliable Vulnerable Road User detection. Current approaches based on preliminary clustering standards face challenges when cluster leaders become unreachable, leading to cluster dissolution and increased network contention. This thesis proposes a resilient clustering protocol that eliminates the need for leader negotiation, utilizing a timer-based approach with randomized jitter intervals to reduce contention and improve fault tolerance. Simulations using theArtery framework demonstrated that the new protocol reduced message transmis-sions by 60% while maintaining high Vulnerable Road User awareness exceeding95%. These findings demonstrate that the proposed clustering protocol improves upon preliminary European Telecommunications Standards Institute clustering specifications by reducing network contention and enhancing both safety and efficiency in Intelligent Transport Systems.