Data Dissemination using Caching and Network Coding in VANETs Augmented with Road Side Units

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have been the focus of much research in recent years. However, efficient data dissemination over VANETs poses challenging issues due to the high speed of the vehicles as well as the tremendous range in vehicular traffic pattern. Caching and roadside support units are promising means to deal with this issue. However, before caching can be used, cache consistency techniques to allow users to access current information and stale data must be developed. This research will use strategies used in mobile ad hoc networks as the basis to formulate new cache consistency methods in VANETs. In particular, given that many applications will not require strong cache consistency, a probabilistic approach will be developed that will provides additional flexibility in meeting the challenging constraints in a VANET. In addition, network coding will be integrated with data broadcast scheduling in the roadside support units to achieve better performance.