An adaptive relay nodes selection scheme for multi-hop broadcast in VANETs

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have potential applications for improving on-road driving experiences including preemptive road safety measures and provision for infotainment services. This paper proposes a Bi-directional Stable Communication (BDSC) relay nodes selection scheme designed for multi-hop broadcasting protocols over a platoon of vehicles. Relay nodes selection is based on quantitative representation of link qualities for single-hop neighboring nodes by using a proposed link quality estimation algorithm. The BDSC scheme aims to improve packet delivery ratio while maintaining low end-to-end communication delays over a densely populated network with nodes distributed over a large coverage area. To achieve this, the proposed scheme attempts to adaptively balance between the estimated link qualities and the distance between the source broadcaster and the potential forwarders when selecting the next hop nodes for relaying the broadcast messages. Our results from extensive simulation analysis reveal that the proposed BDSC scheme outperforms existing multi-hop broadcasting schemes in terms of packet delivery ratio when evaluated over a densely populated VANETs.