Networking Simulation for Intelligent Transportation Systems

7CONVAS: Connected Vehicle Assessment System for Realistic Co-simulation of Traffic and Communications

7.1. Introduction

Connected vehicle technology enables vehicles to communicate with each other and the infrastructure wirelessly. Automated vehicle technology senses the driving environment and operates a vehicle with limited or even without human input. These technologies together provide a platform for creating a wide array of applications to address real-world problems of how to assist and improve mobility, safety and the environment through next generation Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). With a limited initial market penetration, emerging technology components and unknown human behavioral responses, we view realistic simulation as a very powerful and costeffective method for testing, developing and evaluating various components of these new technologies.

Traditional traffic simulation focuses on microscopic road behaviors, simple interactions between vehicles and interactions with the transportation infrastructure. Communications are often assumed to be ideal or are crudely simplified for modeling purposes. In many cases, communication effects are post-processed using detailed vehicle trajectories and do not affect the traffic simulation. The major limitation of such approaches is that simulated vehicles make no adjustments based on the packets received or wireless reception characteristics. Integrating both traffic and communication simulations at a fine time ...