Connectivity improvement in urban intersections obstructed by buildings using RSUs

Abstract

Vehicular collision avoidance systems can improve road safety by means of periodic exchange of status information between neighbouring vehicles. At urban intersections, the effect of shadowing caused by buildings has a severe impact on the communication links, leading to a connectivity performance degradation due to attenuation of the radio signal. A solution to the shadowing problem is to use vehicles or dedicated Road-Side Units (RSUs) as relay nodes, in urban intersections obstructed by buildings. In this paper, we analyze how an RSU improves connectivity in scenarios where vehicles are approaching over perpendicular roads on an intersection with obstructing buildings. We evaluate the connectivity provided by the system in terms of the notification position, number of beacons received, and link life time. The simulation results show that using an RSU in this scenario significantly improves connectivity, hence, providing better conditions for the operation of road safety-oriented applications.