Current Trends in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Vehicular Networks are receiving a lot of attention due to the wide variety of services they can provide. Their applications range from safety and crash avoidance to Internet access and multimedia. A lot of work and research around the globe is being conducted to define the standards for vehicular Communications. These include frequency allocation, standards for physical and link layers, routing algorithms, as well as security issues and new applications. In this paper we review the standardization work and researches related to vehicular networks and discuss the challenges facing future vehicular networks. millions of people around the world die every year in car accidents and many more are injured. Implementations of safety information such as speed limits and road conditions are used in many parts of the world but still more work is required. Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) should upon implementation, collect and distribute safety information to massively reduce the number of accidents by warning drivers about the danger before they actually face it. Such networks comprise of sensors and On Board Units (OBU) installed in the car as well as Road Side Units (RSU). The data collected from the sensors on the vehicles can be displayed to the driver, sent to the RSU or even broadcasted to other vehicles depending on its nature and importance. The RSU distributes this data, along with data from road sensors, weather centers, traffic control centers, etc to the vehicles.