Mobile Vehicular Networking Systems / VANETs: Structure, Challenges, Routing, and Future Developments: A Review

Abstract

The Vehicular Safety Consortium (VSC), the Crash-Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP), and the Vehicle Infrastructure Initiative (VII) are working beside leading light-duty vehicle manufacturers to develop safety technology and applications for "Vehicular ad-hoc Networks". "VANETs" are poised to alter the future of transportation by enabling the real-time communication between vehicles (V2V) and vehicles to infrastructure (V2I). These networks are critical for increasing road safety, regulating traffic flow, and enabling the development of self-driving technologies. This paper provides a thorough examination of VANETs' fundamental architecture, outlining multi-layered communication protocols, incorporation of cellular networks such as 4G/5G, and their ways of use to improve these services. The paper also investigates the architecture of VANETs built to solve the unique challenges of automobile environments, such as high mobility, intermittent connectivity, and rapid topological change. It examines the scalability of VANETs in densely populated metropolitan regions, emphasizing the inadequacies of present protocols and proposing improvements through advances in wireless technologies and complex routing-algorithms. The paper predicts future developments of VANETs, particularly the combination of emerging technologies such as edge and cloud-computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and AI-enhanced traffic management systems. Furthermore, the growing significance of autonomous vehicles within VANET frameworks emphasizes the importance of seamless vehicle coordination and infrastructure improvement to enable self-driving cars. This paper contributes the discussion about the evolution of VANETs to meet the needs of more innovative, safer, and more efficient transportation systems, highlighting potential impact on global mobility trends.