An Innovative Autonomous and Semiautonomous Cars Communication Framework: An Environment Perception Perspective

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles are equipped with multiple sensors that allow perception of the road environment. However, there are always challenges in terms of measurement accuracy, dynamics of the road driving conditions, and extended perception availability. Vehicular communication technologies have already been extensively researched, and the IEEE 802.11p standard has been approved. Therefore, communications could help in extending the perception of the autonomous vehicles if proper information transmission mechanisms are utilized. In fact, this paper proposes a novel and innovative design that will allow vehicles to extend their perception by exchanging a smaller number of packets than needed and estimate the actual perception of the environment. First, we propose a novel MAC layer that is compatible with the IEEE 802.11p standard that allows vehicles to recover extra perceptional areas of the environment as they receive new packets. Second, we demonstrate that this approach will result in a better utilization of the communication channel and acceptable perception accuracy of the environment, compared to transmitting the complete information.