Weighted link quality and forward progress coupled with modified RTS/CTS for beaconless packet forwarding protocol (B-PFP) in VANETs

Vehicular ad hoc networks are considered as a promising wireless communication area to provide safety and comfort on the roads. Due to high mobility and dynamic topologies, the wireless communication links are not stable and network suffers from delay and disconnection issues. Geographical routing protocols rely on beacon exchange to update source and neighbor location in the network. If the neighbor information is outdated or not accurate, the source may not be able to select next optimal forwarder in the network. Source based routing protocols have designed to handle unstable issues and enhance the network performance. To this end, we propose a beaconless packet forwarding protocol for better forwarding decisions in an urban environment. The beaconless protocol is based on modified handshake mechanism with weighted forward progress, link quality, and directions greedy metrics. The protocol has two modes of operations: at the intersection and in between intersections to determine next forwarder node and route. Simulation results revealed better performance of proposed beaconless protocol in terms of data delivery and delay.