VIRTUALIZATION SUPPORT FOR COMPLEX COMMUNICATIONS IN VEHICULAR AD HOC NETWORKS.

The high mobility and variability of road traffic has hampered the design and deployment of automotive entertainment and information services through vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). However, a scenario of greater predictability is looming in the near future, thanks to advances in such areas as automated transportation, fleet management and real-time traffic information systems, and also to the promotion of transport sharing policies. Having a priori knowledge about the vehicles' movements opens unprecedented opportunities for communications, which bear the potential to finally turn VANETs into an alternative or a complement to other types of networks. Knowing that, this paper presents extensions for GPS-enabled smartphones to support demanding communication services through VANETs technology, relying on the concept of virtual mobile nodes and introducing that of virtualized circuits. This proposal has been validated in an environment that combines a network simulator and a microscopic road traffic simulator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]