Context-aware heterogeneous V2X communications for connected vehicles

Connected vehicles will require heterogeneous or hybrid communication technologies to implement the full range of cooperative ITS services in diverse scenarios. This paper presents an architecture for context-aware heterogeneous vehicular networks. The architecture is compatible with the current ETSI and ISO standardized ITS station reference architectures, and allows for the dynamic selection and configuration of communication profiles based on the context conditions and the application requirements. The potential of the proposed architecture is demonstrated with the implementation and evaluation of a heterogeneous V2I communications algorithm that improves the quality of service and the capacity to satisfy the vehicular application requirements, and reduces the economic cost of connected vehicle services.