An analytical approach to the estimation of vehicular communication reliability for intersection control applications

• Published in: Vehicular Communications Vol. 45; p. 100693
• Main Authors: Petrov, Tibor, Finkelberg, Ilya, Počta, Peter, Buzna, Ľuboš, Zarkhin, Nina, Gal-Tzur, Ayelet, Toledo, Tomer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.02.2024
• Subjects: Communication failures; Connected and automated vehicles; Emergency vehicle preemption; Road intersection control; Vehicular communication reliability estimation; Communication failures; Connected and automated vehicles; Road intersection control; Emergency vehicle preemption; Vehicular communication reliability estimation
• ISSN: 2214-2096
• DOI: 10.1016/j.vehcom.2023.100693

Connected and automated vehicles bring the capability to generate traffic data for intersection control applications. Unfortunately, for various reasons, such as signal blocking and interference, vehicles may experience communication failures leading to inefficiencies, e.g., unnecessarily long waiting queues, increased noise and greenhouse gas emissions or increased delays of emergency vehicles at intersections resulting in lower life-saving rates. This paper proposes an analytical approach to estimate vehicular communication reliability for road intersection control applications. The road segment in front of the intersection is divided dynamically into two areas. Due to the physical proximity to the roadside unit, the adjacent area is assumed to have more reliable communication than the more distant area. Consequently, the information about the approaching traffic in the more distant area is deduced from received communication in both areas. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulation experiments. First, we evaluate the communication reliability estimator by prediction accuracy metrics. Second, we study the benefits of the deployment of this estimator for emergency vehicle preemption. Our results provide evidence that the estimator has the potential to improve the performance of intersection control applications. •An estimator of communication reliability for road intersection control is proposed.•The estimator is verified by evaluating the prediction accuracy in simulation experiments.•Benefits of the estimator are showcased by emergency vehicle preemption.•The estimator reduces intersection delays by more than 30% on average.