Wireless Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks: a survey on network protocols research solutions and open issues

Wireless Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) have received an explosive attention under a research viewpoint in recent years, and a number of research groups worldwide are making efforts to explore the potential of vehicular communication as the enabling factor for a novel set of pervasive services and applications. This is also testified by the high number of recent and ongoing EU and US research projects in this field. This survey illustrates a quick tour on the most challenging issues that have been considered in recent researches, and on some open problems that would need additional efforts and research solutions. Specifically, this survey will focus on the MAC and Network protocol layers, by introducing the specific assumptions, limitations and potential of the VANET scenarios, and by exploring the most significant milestones so far achieved under a protocol design and optimization viewpoint. These guidelines are based on the overall evaluation of recent research results, projects, standards and directions for exploitation of the VANET potential under a service level viewpoint.