SCM: secured communication model for urban VANET applications

The primary concern of any vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) application is to offer safety and infotainment related services to commuters in a dynamic and reliable way. The characteristics of both VANET environment and the participating vehicles raise several challenges for the application development. The success of any application depends on the strength of the underlying communication model. Thus scalable, secure and robust communication models that work well with different traffic conditions and varying mobility speeds are required. We have proposed a secured communication model (SCM) for VANETs to facilitate dedicated short range communication (DSRC). The model was designed based on the specifications of IEEE 802.11p standard and the security component was offered through IDbased encryption and signature schemes. Several urban communication scenarios with different vehicle densities were created in EXata emulator. These scenarios were emulated on the proposed SCM using four routing protocols- AODV, Bellman Ford, OLSR and LAR. At higher vehicle densities the proposed model had resulted in good throughput with an acceptable delay. Out of the four routing protocols, location aided routing (LAR) protocol was found efficient on the proposed SCM.