Hybrid position-based and DTN forwarding in vehicular ad hoc networks

Efficient data delivery in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is still a challenging research issue. Position-based routing protocols have been proven to be more suitable for dynamic VANETs than traditional ad hoc routing protocols. However, position-based routing assumes that intermediate nodes can always be found to setup an end-to-end connection between the source and the destination, otherwise, it suffers from network partitions which are very common in VANETs and leads to poor performances. This paper addresses data delivery challenge in the possible disconnected VANETs by combining position-based forwarding strategy with store-carry-forward routing scheme from delay tolerant networks. The proposed routing method makes use of vehicle driving direction to determine whether holding or forwarding the packet. Experimental results show that the proposed mechanism outperforms existing position-based solutions in terms of packet delivery ratio.