SafeNav: A Cooperative V2X System using Cellular and 802.11p based Radios Opportunistically for Safe Navigation

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology is a promising technology for the automobile industry in this decade. V2X includes vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-network (V2N), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V21) and vehicle-to-person (V2P) modes of communication. However, relying on a single radio or V2X mode of communication is not desirable in the design of V2X systems of the future. In the absence of dedicated ITS communication infrastructure on the road side, one can rely on infrastructure-less technologies like Wi-Fi Direct for V2V communication and cellular technologies like 4G/5G for V2N communication. If direct V2V communication is not possible with other vehicles present in the vicinity, vehicles can rely on cellular technologies for an indirect mode of communication (V2N). To reap in the benefits of both V2V and V2N, we propose a cooperative V2X architecture by opportunistically using either or both of cellular and 802.11 based radios present in the vehicles for reliable and scalable communication among the vehicles. The efficacy of the proposed V2X system is demonstrated by developing a collision warning solution named SafeNay. Simulation results suggest that it is worth using both V2V and V2N modes of communication to significantly improve the reliability of safety message exchange especially in hybrid scenarios i.e., vehicles having either or both of cellular (4G) and IEEE 802.11p based radios. An Android app has been developed to further demonstrate the use of the proposed system for collision avoidance in real-world settings.