Software-Defined Vehicular Networks With Trust Management: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach

With the rising interest of expedient, safe, and high-efficient transportation, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have turned into a critical technology in smart transportation systems. Because of the high mobility of nodes, VANETs are vulnerable to security attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel framework of software-defined VANETs with trust management. Specifically, we separate the forwarding plane in VANETs from the control plane, which is responsible for the control functionality, such as routing protocols and trust management in VANETs. Using the on-demand distance vector routing (TAODV) protocol as an example, we present a routing protocol named software-defined trust based ad hoc on-demand distance vector routing (SD-TAODV). Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed software-defined VANETs with trust management.

SummaryThe recent breakthroughs in the automobile industries and telecommunication technologies along with the exceptional multimodal mobility services brought focus on intelligent transportation system (ITS), of which vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) gain much more attention. The distinctive features of software‐defined networking (SDN) leverages the vehicular networks by its state of the centralized art having a comprehensive view of the network. Its potential to bring the flexibility, programmability and other extensive advancements to vehicular networks has set the stage for a novel networking paradigm termed as software‐defined vehicular networks (SDVNs). Many researchers have demonstrated the SDN‐based VANETs with the various configuration of the SDN components in VANET architecture. However, a compilation of the work on the SDN‐based VANET system as a whole, incorporating its architecture, use‐cases, and opportunities, is still inadequate. We start with the summary of the recent studies that exist on the SDVNs, followed by the comprehensive explanation of its components. Next, we present the taxonomy of SDVN based on the architecture modes, protocols, access technologies, and opportunities with trending technologies. Finally, we highlight the challenges, open research issues, and future research directions.

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANET) have emerged as a viable solution for the network related problems in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs). However, with its current architecture, especially with the unavailability of the global network information, VANET has not been able to fulfill some of the necessities for efficient information dissemination and most critically, still lacks flexibility and programmability. Recently, Software Defined Networking (SDN) has been introduced into the vehicular domain in order to overcome the shortcomings in VANET. SDN is capable of handling the dynamic nature of networks with intelligent applications while lowering operational costs through simplified hardware and software. Yet, the architectural limitations of the presented Software Defined Vehicular Networks (SDVN), especially the centralization of control plane and its placement, have imposed doubts on its usability especially in the midst of stringent delay requirement of VANET applications.

As the automotive and telecommunication industries advance, more vehicles are becoming connected, leading to the realization of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) supports various ITS services, including safety, convenience, and infotainment services for drivers and passengers. Generally, such services are realized through data sharing among vehicles and nearby infrastructures or vehicles over multi-hop data routing mechanisms. Vehicular data routing faces many challenges caused by vehicle dynamicity, intermittent connectivity, and diverse application requirements. Consequently, the software-defined networking (SDN) paradigm offers unique features such as programmability and flexibility to enhance vehicular network performance and management and meet the quality of services (QoS) requirements of various VANET services. Recently, VANET routing protocols have been improved using the multilevel knowledge and an up-to-date global view of traffic conditions offered by SDN technology. The primary objective of this study is to furnish comprehensive information regarding the current SDN-based VANET routing protocols, encompassing intricate details of their underlying mechanisms, forwarding algorithms, and architectural considerations. Each protocol will be thoroughly examined individually, elucidating its strengths, weaknesses, and proposed enhancements. Also, the software-defined vehicular network (SDVN) architectures are presented according to their operation modes and controlling degree. Then, the potential of SDN-based VANET is explored from the aspect of routing and the design requirements of routing protocols in SDVNs. SDVN routing algorithms are uniquely classified according to various criteria. In addition, a complete comparative analysis will be achieved to analyze the protocols regarding performance, optimization, and simulation results. Finally, the challenges and upcoming research directions for developing such protocols are widely stated here. By presenting such insights, this paper provides a comprehensive overview and inspires researchers to enhance existing protocols and explore novel solutions, thereby paving the way for innovation in this field.

A vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a mobile ad hoc network composed of communication between vehicles, between vehicles and roadside units, and between vehicles and pedestrians, in order to achieve traffic safety and entertainment services. The design of the routing protocol is very important for the realization of the service function of VANET. Local optimum and network congestion problems are restraints of traditional geographic routing protocols for VANET. In this paper, a software-defined network (SDN) based unicast routing scheme in an urban traffic environment is proposed, which uses Dijkstra’s algorithm to find a global optimal anchor path. The RSU neighbor discovery protocol is proposed, through which each RSU can discover its neighbor RSUs, and then each RSU periodically sends ant packets to its neighbor RSUs, evaluates the communication connection quality of each street segment according to the statistical data of the ant packets received, and sends the evaluation value to the SDN server in time. The SDN server has the connection quality evaluation values of all street segments in the global scope, from which an optimal anchor path can be calculated. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has better packet delivery ratio than other related schemes.

Software-defined vehicular network (SDVN): A survey on architecture and routing

Software Defined Network (SDN) is getting popularity both from academic and industry. Lot of researches have been made to combine SDN with future Internet paradigms to manage and control networks efficiently. SDN provides better management and control in a network through decoupling of data and control plane. Named Data Networking (NDN) is a future Internet technique with aim to replace IPv4 addressing problems. In NDN, communication between different nodes done on the basis of content names rather than IP addresses. Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) is a subtype of MANET which is also considered as a hot area for future applications. Different vehicles communicate with each other to form a network known as VANET. Communication between VANET can be done in two ways (i) Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) (ii) Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I). Combination of SDN and NDN techniques in future Internet can solve lot of problems which were hard to answer by considering a single technique. Security in VANET is always challenging due to unstable topology of VANET. In this paper, we merge future Internet techniques and propose a new scheme to answer timing attack problem in VANETs named as Timing Attack Prevention (TAP) protocol. Proposed scheme is evaluated through simulations which shows the superiority of proposed protocol regarding detection and mitigation of attacker vehicles as compared to normal timing attack scenario in NDN based VANET.

An optimal solutions-guided deep reinforcement learning approach for online energy storage control

Controller placement optimization in hierarchical distributed software defined vehicular networks

Past few decades have witnessed large increase in number of vehicles on roads due to which the traffic safety needs have also become complex and hence necessary to be taken care of. Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are becoming an asset for achieving all these goals. VANETs provide applications like driver assistance, passenger comfort and vehicle safety. Apart from its general characteristics due to the dynamic nature of road environments and traffic patterns, communication linkage among vehicles in VANETs suffers breakage problem hence requires a very reliable routing protocol. To manage the communication efficiently many routing protocols are already available for MANETs which can be further used for routing and communication among vehicles in VANETs, but characteristics of these two networks (VANET and MANET) are very different, so there is requirement to enhance these MANET routing protocols so that those can be used in VANETs. When we use some existing routing protocols in VANET then number of link breakage are surprisingly high because mobility is higher in VANETs as compared to MANETs. So this paper presents advanced version of an existing MANET routing protocol for better performance in VANET environment. The new routing protocol has removed problem of large number of routing error messages which was existing in AODV routing protocol. Protocol proposed in this paper has better results as compared to AODV and paper has also shown results of simulation and also elaborated the findings.

In today's digital era, multimedia streaming is one of the major sources of internet traffic and it is also expected to grow significantly in upcoming years. Even though traditional Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) provide solutions for multimedia content delivery through best effort, the Quality of Experience (QoE) of these techniques is crucially damaged by dynamic network changes, fluctuations in bandwidth and congestion in the network due to lack of global view. However, all these limitations can be substantially reduced by the introduction of Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture. Hence this hybrid network called Software Defined Vehicular Network (SDVN) introduces a global view, flexibility, scalability and smartness in multimedia streaming. The proposed work uses a POX controller with an OpenFlow Spanning Tree topology discovery unit-based SDN framework for the real-world vehicular network. This modified POX was compared with the traditional vehicular network and a normal POX for QoE parameters like Multi Scale Structural Similarity, Three Component Structural Similarity, Blurring, Delta, Mean sum of absolute difference and Noise estimation. For testing, a Standard Definition (SD) video was streamed between vehicular nodes under dense and real-world traffic scenarios. The QoE Metrics of Modified POX improved between 1 % to 42%. Hence the proposed Modified POX presents an enhanced end-to-end QoE for multimedia streaming service.

With the astonishing emergence of connected and autonomous vehicles along with their growing demand on processing and computation, Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) is being viewed as one of the enabling technology. VANET aims at providing services like vehicle road safety, enhancing traffic management and travel efficiency, comfort and ease of travelling for travelers and drivers. But with current architecture, VANET is not able to work up to its full potential. Today's VANET face lot of challenges like lack of flexibility in architecture as a result of which deployment at large scale is a difficult task, lack of programmability, high latency etc. In this paper we are going to review paradigms like Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and Software Defined Network (SDN) which are being used alongside of VANET to achieve low latency, programmability and flexibility. We also discuss benefits and services provided by MEC and SDN in VANET.

Digital twins and the Internet of Things (IoT) have gained significant research attention in recent years due to their potential advantages in various domains, and vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are one such application. VANETs can provide a wide range of services for passengers and drivers, including safety, convenience, and information. The dynamic nature of these environments poses several challenges, including intermittent connectivity, quality of service (QoS), and heterogeneous applications. Combining intelligent technologies and software-defined networking (SDN) with VANETs (termed intelligent software-defined vehicular networks (iSDVNs)) meets these challenges. In this context, several types of research have been published, and we summarize their benefits and limitations. We also aim to survey stochastic modeling and performance analysis for iSDVNs and the uses of machine-learning algorithms through digital twin networks (DTNs), which are also part of iSDVNs. We first present a taxonomy of SDVN architectures based on their modes of operation. Next, we survey and classify the state-of-the-art iSDVN routing protocols, stochastic computations, and resource allocations. The evolution of SDN causes its complexity to increase, posing a significant challenge to efficient network management. Digital twins offer a promising solution to address these challenges. This paper explores the relationship between digital twins and SDN and also proposes a novel approach to improve network management in SDN environments by increasing digital twin capabilities. We analyze the pitfalls of these state-of-the-art iSDVN protocols and compare them using tables. Finally, we summarize several challenges faced by current iSDVNs and possible future directions to make iSDVNs autonomous.

Software-Defined Vehicular Networks (SDVNs) technology has been attracting significant attention as it can make Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) more efficient and intelligent. SDVN provides a flexible architecture which can decouple the network management from data transmission. Compared to centralized SDVN, hybrid SDVN is even more flexible and has less overhead. This hybrid technology can eliminate the burden on the central controller by moving regional routing tasks from the central controller to local controllers or vehicular nodes. In the literature, different routing protocols have been reported for SDVNs. However, these existing routing protocols lack flexibility and adaptive approaches to deal with changing and dynamic traffic conditions. Thus, this paper proposes a new software-defined routing method, namely, Novel Adaptive Routing and Switching Scheme (NARSS), deployed in the controller. This adaptive method can dynamically select routing schemes for a specific traffic scenario. To achieve this, this paper firstly presents a method for collecting road network information to describe traffic condition where the method extracts the feature data used to generate the routing scheme switching model. Secondly, we train the feature data through an artificial neural network with high training speed and accuracy. Finally, we use the model as a basis for establishing the NARSS and deploy it in the controller. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the single traditional routing protocol in terms of both packet delivery ratio and end-to-end delay.

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) present an intriguing platform for several applications on e.g., intelligent transportation system (ITS) and infotainment applications aspire to be the main pattern of communication among vehicles while travelling. This can significantly impact on the amount of data exchanged by vehicles, increasing the contention on communication links and thus, degrading the quality of service of these applications. So, discrimination of data becomes imperative and forwarding critical information on suitable routes becomes decisive. Hence, a quality of service (QoS)-driven mechanism is needed to handle and assign network resources according to the stringent application data traffic demands. But, VANETs high node mobility and frequent link failure, stuck a big challenge in implementing an effective policy to meet and enforce these QoS requirements. A promising way to tackle this issue is to enforce QoS at the network layer, since it is the crucial point in VANETs’ communication. So, over the years, many QoS-aware routing protocols were specifically conceived for VANETs. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of QoS-aware routing protocols in VANETs’ literature. We examined the protocols based on their ability to support ITS infotainment services, their multi-constraint path problem (MCP), protocol’s functionality and weakness, objectives and design challenges. This way, we outline future directions for VANETs QoS-aware protocol research.