A packing model to estimate VANET capacity
Abstract
In IEEE 802.11p VANET networks the transmission scheduling is distributed and asynchronous. The number of simultaneous transmitters is thus closely related to the CSMA/CA mechanism which limits the spatial reuse of the channel. The capacity is bounded by a constant $C$ whatever the number of nodes and the type of routing schemes. This paper aims to evaluate the spatial reuse of a VANET (using CSMA/CA) and to deduce its maximum capacity. The proposed model is an extension of a classical \textit{packing problem}. We prove formally that the intensity of the maximum number of simultaneous transmitters (the maximal spatial reuse) converges to a constant and propose a simple estimate of this constant. Realistic simulations show that the theoretical capacity offers a very tight bound on the real capacity of the network.