FWDP: A fuzzy logic-based vehicle weighting model for data prioritization in vehicular ad hoc networks

In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), data propagation is quite challenging due to the high mobility of vehicles, the instability of communication links, and the inherent topology changes. This paper presents FWDP, a fuzzy logic-based vehicle weighting model (VWM) for scheduling prioritized data in VANETs. FWDP employs roadside units (RSUs) to dominate the frequent topology changes and manage the data propagation. A Fuzzy C-Mean clustering (FCMC) is used for handling clustered vehicles that compete to utilize the shared channel. RSUs receive prioritized data from cluster heads (CHs) in the proposed model wherein CHs allocate scheduled service channels to weighted vehicles during an interval. FWDP is equipped with a fuzzy inference system (FIS) for vehicle weighting according to the velocity and inter-vehicle distance metrics. In addition, RSUs compute the signal-to-noise and the interference ratio (SINR) to solve the hidden terminal problem to prevent radio interference. The OMNET++ simulator is used to show the performance improvement of FWDP in terms of the packet delivery ratio, interference ratio, suspend data ratio, Throughput, end-to-end delay, channel utilization, and packet loss ratio metrics intended for low, intermediate, and high vehicle densities.