Performance Evaluation of a Novel Target Tracking Protocol for Vehicular Networks

Abstract

Currently, for various reasons, authorities are facing the problem of locating a particular vehicle. Some cars are equipped by a geographical positioning system (GPS), but fake or those used in criminal acts have their GPS off. Therefore, locating and target tracking in Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) is gaining more attention in the research field due to all the envisioned applications that rely on it, such as endlessly tracking a particular vehicle knowing only its license plate number. This is a vital and challenging problem to merge with the dynamic nature of VANETs and the high speed of its nodes. In this paper we try to alleviate this problem by proposing a novel infrastructureless and lightweight tracking algorithm that allows authorities to constantly track a target node. Based on the clustering model, nodes surrounding the target have to collaborate to keep the target in sight and continuously inform the control center (the authorities’ base station). A performance evaluation of our proposed solution is performed by using the NS2 simulator.