Flying to the Rescue: UAV-Assisted Urgent Alert Transmission in VANET

Leila Bouchrit (1, 2) , Sajeh Zairi (3, 4) , Ikbal Msadaa (4) , Amine Dhraief (2) , Kahlil Drira (5, 6)

1 ENSI - École Nationale des Sciences de l'Informatique [Manouba]
2 UMA - Université de la Manouba [Tunisie]
3 Qassim University [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]
4 UCAR - Université de Carthage (Tunisie)
5 LAAS-SARA - Équipe Services et Architectures pour Réseaux Avancés
6 LAAS - Laboratoire d'analyse et d'architecture des systèmes

Safety applications are the cornerstone of the envisioned Vehicle Ad Hoc Network (VANET). Early transmission of alert messages following car accidents can avoid further potential crashes and save lives. However, the limited terrestrial coverage on highways, particularly in rural areas with low traffic density, hinders the deployment of this service. One promising solution involves integrating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, into VANETs to serve as flying relays. These UAVs can re-broadcast alert or warning messages between vehicles, bridging communication gaps. In this paper, we propose a unified UAVs-VANET architecture where UAVs relay messages among vehicles on rural highways. To evaluate our approach, we consider a case study involving a road accident on a Tunisian highway (Tunis - Bou Salem 75 km). We use the SUMO simulator in conjunction with NS3. The obtained results showed that 100% of vehicles are alerted within 3.85 seconds. The study also investigates how the number of deployed UAVs impacts the number of alerted vehicles.

Mots clés: VANET; UAV; LTE/4G D2D; IEEE 802.11p; VANET UAV LTE/4G D2D IEEE 802.11p

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Leila Bouchrit, Sajeh Zairi, Ikbal Msadaa, Amine Dhraief, Kahlil Drira. Flying to the Rescue: UAV-Assisted Urgent Alert Transmission in VANET. IEEE International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE 2023 ), Dec 2023, Paris, France. pp.1-6, ⟨10.1109/WETICE57085.2023.10477830⟩. ⟨hal-04551024⟩