Spatial Intelligence and Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication: Topologies and Architectures

Abstract

As the developing world positions itself towards implementing Smart Cities, concepts such as intelligent transport systems and spatial intelligence come to the fore. Smart Cities require contemporary pervasive and dynamic topologies and architectures to achieve spatial intelligence which is supported by intelligent transport systems. In such systems, vehicles can communicate with one another using Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication models. V2V requires the availability of information on demand and anytime; also, that this information must be accessible in real time by the vehicles as they traverse through the city. Advanced information provision in Smart City environments enable vehicles to exchange information and make intelligent decisions on the roads. A whole array of both functional and non-functional requirements such as usability, aesthetics, security (access, availability and reliability), topology and information architecture, etc. need to be considered to achieve the desired level of spatial intelligence. Putting in place a network to handle the different network dimensions to achieve ubiquity can be significantly costly and beyond the reach of many of the developing world countries. Although, there have been some pockets of research on different aspects of vehicular networks, there is no significant research that brings a great deal of spatial intelligence together. This chapter aims to comprehensively explore the concept of spatial intelligence in the realm of V2V communication. Without carefully thought topologies and architecture, given the context, spatial intelligence in V2V communication cannot be realised. This chapter contributes to knowledge by exploring the different topologies and architectures in mobile agents (vehicles) where cost is one of the key inhibiting factors influencing the actual design.