LAUSR

Vehicular communications based on IEEE802.11p promise to improve traffic efficiency and safety in the near future. Embedded with 802.11p-compliant devices, the cooperation among connected vehicles will provide a shift in the way transportation systems operate. Nevertheless, before widespread adoption, extensive performance evaluation of the standard is in need. Due to the high cost and reasonably low availability of commercial devices, most work on VANETs is still performed using simulations. To investigate the equivalence between real experiments and simulations involving 802.11p, this article evaluates the behavior obtained by periodic beacon messages, the basis of safety applications in VANETs. Using commercial OBUs and RSUs, the results are compared with those obtained with NS-3/PhySim and Veins/MiXiM simulators. In V2I and V2V communication scenarios, three key metrics are evaluated: the maximum communication range, packet delivery rate, and packet inter-reception time. The influence of different modulations supported by 802.11p and varying vehicle speeds are also analyzed.