Analysis and simulation of a message dissemination algorithm for VANET

This paper addresses the analytical evaluation of broadcast protocols in VANET. We focus on the most popular broadcast algorithm, which consists in the current emitter selecting the furthest receiver as the next forwarder. We propose a general framework based on point process to evaluate this protocol. The radio environment is modelled by a generic Frame Error Rate function. It enables us, through the same model, to assess the performances for different radio environments or radio technologies. We derive simple formulae for different quantities relative to the performance of the broadcast protocol: time to propagate the message, emitters' intensity, mean number of receptions for the same message, etc. Results based on the analytical model are compared with simulations using realistic vehicle traffic in order to determine the contexts for which the analytical model is relevant. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.