Fair sharing of bandwidth in VANETs

We address the challenge of how to share the limited wireless
channel capacity for the exchange of safety-related information
in a fully deployed vehicular ad hoc network (VANET). In
particular, we study the situation that arises when the number
of nodes sending periodic safety messages is too high in a
specific area. In order to achieve a good performance of
safety-related protocols, we propose to limit the load sent to
the channel using a strict fairness criterion among the nodes. A
formal definition of this problem is presented in terms of a
max-min optimization problem with an extra condition of per-node
maximality. Furthermore, we propose FPAV, a power control
algorithm which finds the optimum transmission range of every
node, and formally prove its validity under idealistic
conditions. Simulations are performed to visualize the result of
FPAV in a couple of road situations. Finally, we discuss the
issues that must be taken into account when implementing FPAV.