Biblio

We argue on the need for a dedicated medium access control (MAC) for Vehicular VLC (V-VLC). The huge unlicensed spectrum that can support high throughput applications and the intrinsic security due to the LOS requirement make visible light a viable candidate for use in vehicular communications. In some first research work, the directionality of V-VLC has been considered and an initial conclusion was that the small collision domain leads to negligible interference and, thus, dedicated mechanisms for medium access are unnecessary. However, in a more realistic simulation setup using the Luxembourg mobility model, we are able to show that, in certain geographical areas, the number of transmitters seen at a single receiver can easily grow up to 30. Considering packet transmissions, the interference-induced packet loss can be substantial, reaching up to 13 % during rush hours. We thus make the case that this packet loss should be mitigated with a dedicated MAC for coordinated access control in V-VLC.

Communicating vehicles will change road traffic as we know it. With current versions of European and US standards in mind, the authors discuss privacy and traffic surveillance issues in vehicular network technology and outline research directions that could address these issues.