Spread spectrum inter-vehicle communication using sector antennas

In inter-vehicle communication (IVC) expectation for spread spectrum techniques is high. However, in a decentralized network environment, power control is difficult and until now perfect power control has been assumed. In this paper the use of sector antennas are proposed as a solution to the problems of power control in inter-vehicle communication. Results are shown for an IVC protocol in both no power control and imperfect power control environments in a realistic fading channel. Omni-directional, uniform sector antennas and nonuniform sector antennas are examined by computer simulation. Non-uniform sector antennas are shown to be the best solution and to have high packet reception rates even for no power control environments.