A Markov chain-based data dissemination protocol for vehicular ad hoc networks

Enhancing road safety and offering infotainment services are of utmost importance to today's Intelligent Transport System (ITS). Technically speaking, an ITS is based on self-organizing wireless networks, known as vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). In the latter, mobile vehicles can track, compile and share reports on-road travel, driving conditions, and threats, for example, road accidents, in real-time. The spread of such data in VANET would actually improve road safety and driving comfort. In this regard, designing efficient data dissemination protocols in VANET has become a pivotal issue, attracting the interest of academic researchers, networking experts, and automotive companies. This paper introduces a new adaptive geocast data dissemination protocol called Markov Chain-based data Dissemination Protocol (MCDP). MCDP relies on the forward-if-relevant principle to dynamically determine the Zone Of Relevance (ZOR) of the event. We consider the event worth enough for a vehicle whenever there is a high probability that it will meet the event location shortly. Indeed, we introduce a mathematical model to manage vehicle mobility in the road network. Besides, we design a new method for accurately assessing the event relevance to the receiving vehicle. Simulation results underscore MCDP outperforms the pioneering baseline protocols in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.