Impact of Dynamic Traffic on Vehicle-to-Vehicle Visible Light Communication Systems

In this article we studies the impact of dynamic vehicular traffic density on the signal-to-noise-ratio and the associated bit-error-rate (BER) performance of vehicle-to-vehicle visible light communication (V2V-VLC) systems. The article uses traffic data from the M42 and M6 motorways in the U.K. to investigate the probability of coexistence of other vehicles in the adjacent lanes, which induce interference and act as potential reflectors. The results show that the probability of coexistence of other vehicles in the adjacent lanes is lane-independent and it increases during the rush hours to 90%, while it decays to less than 10% during the off-peak and early morning hours. The intervehicular distance and the BER performance vary widely between different lanes and different periods of the day. The results also show that the BER performance of V2V-VLC system with non-line-of-sight (NLOS) component and with LOS component are comparable at rush hours. However, high BER values are predicted during the off-peak hours for NLOS components of the channel.