Integrated Simulation Environments for Vehicular Communications in Cooperative Road Transportation Systems

Pervasive digital technologies and wireless communications are the key enablers for the "smart" evolution of transportation systems, where the current development trend is oriented to increase the level of safety and comfort in driving and traveling, to reduce CO2 emissions and to finally support assisted and autonomous driving. With particular reference to vehicular traffic, the accurate localization, pervasive connectivity and cybersecurity are expected to play a key role for the development of cooperative and intelligent transportation systems (C-ITS). In this frame the present paper proposes an overview of on-going research activities at the University of L'Aquila: moving from specific investigations on radio channel congestion control and mobility management applications, we then focus on methodologies and facilities for validation and testing through the combined use of simulation tools, emulation setups and field trials. The research activity is fully connected to a large scale project that deals with city-wide deployment and experimentation of 5G technologies in the city of L'Aquila, wherein the connected car has been presented as a relevant use case.