Towards Software-defined Vehicular Communication: Architecture and Use Cases

In recent years, Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) has been emerged an enabling technology to provide a wide range of applications for safety and convenience of drivers. However, traditional architecture of VANETs lack of flexibility, scalability, and easy deployment of services. In this context, Software-defined networking (SDN) has emerged as a rapid innovation in the area of networking for both wired networks and wireless networks. The paper aims at demonstrating the concept of SDN in vehicular communication, which can be used to solve the requirements of different types of applications in VANETs. Firstly, a brief on the VANETs challenges and applications have been provided, followed by an elaboration on basic architecture and layers of SDN. Thereafter, an architecture of software-defined vehicular communication (SDVC) has been described along with a focus on current research initiatives and use cases provided by SDN.