A packet size-aware multi-hop broadcast protocol for VANTs based on adaptive redundancy

Existing multi-hop broadcast protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) do not take into account two important issues, specifically the effect of packet payload size on the protocol performance and the importance of an adaptive reliability assurance approach. In this paper, we first discuss the effect of packet size on the packet reception ratio, and then propose a broadcast protocol which is able to specify the best relay node by taking into account the data payload size. The proposed protocol also employs an adaptive redundancy-based relay node selection approach which can achieve an efficient multi-hop broadcasting. We use both real-world experiments and computer simulations to evaluate the proposed protocol.