Experimental evaluation of safety beacons dissemination in VANETs

Efficient beacon delivery and accurate GPS position acquisition are key factors in designing robust safety applications in VANETs. Consequently, minimum delivery delays for beacons and accurate vehicle positional information are crucial parameters to avoid any upcoming emergencies on the road such as vehicle collisions or other hazardous situation. This paper studies the accuracy level of GPS acquired positional information and evaluates the effects of beacon transmission frequency and beacon size on beacon delivery delays by performing experimental field tests on four vehicles. Our experimental results indicate that the GPS acquired position may vary from the actual position of the vehicle, and that the packet size and broadcasting frequency are key factors in achieving high performance for safety applications in VANETs.