Signal Processing Challenges in Cellular-Assisted Vehicular Communications: Efforts and developments within 3GPP LTE and beyond

Abstract

Vehicular communications is an important enabler for enhancing the safety on roads by supporting mutual awareness of vehicles, as well as, for improving the efficiency of transportation through smart traffic management by Intelligent Transport Systems (ITSs). Over the last years, specific vehicular communication systems, such as, European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) ITS G5 based on IEEE 802.11p dedicated short range communication (DSRC), have been developed to enable timely and reliable exchange of information in so called vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). Recently, however, interest in mobile communications technology to support VANETs is increasing, because this technology is available off-the-shelf and, therefore, enables cost-effective implementations. In this article, we provide an overview on efforts ongoing within the development of LTE Release 14 to enhance the support of vehicular communications.