On the Experimental Evaluation of Vehicular Networks: Issues, Requirements and Methodology Applied to a Real Use Case

Abstract

One of the most challenging fields in vehicular communications has been the experimental assessment ofprotocols and novel technologies. Researchers usually tend to simulate vehicular scenarios and/or partiallyvalidate new contributions in the area by using constrained testbeds and carrying out minor tests. In this line,the present work reviews the issues that pioneers in the area of vehicular communications and, in general,in telematics, have to deal with if they want to perform a good evaluation campaign by real testing. Thekey needs for a good experimental evaluation is the use of proper software tools for gathering testing data,post-processing and generating relevant figures of merit and, finally, properly showing the most importantresults. For this reason, a key contribution of this paper is the presentation of an evaluation environmentcalled AnaVANET, which covers the previous needs. By using this tool and presenting a reference case ofstudy, a generic testing methodology is described and applied. This way, the usage of the IPv6 protocol overa vehicle-to-vehicle routing protocol, and supporting IETF-based network mobility, is tested at the same timethe main features of the AnaVANET system are presented. This work contributes in laying the foundations fora proper experimental evaluation of vehicular networks and will be useful for many researchers in the area.