Application Driven Routing for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks - A Necessity

Vehicular communications is regarded as being a major innovative feature for in-car technology. At present, all major industrialised countries are actively promoting research focusing on this issue and car manufacturers are pushing product development through in-house research and standardisation efforts. Vehicular communications can be used in a diverse range of applications for improving road safety through the dissemination of warning messages to alert drivers of accidents, road conditions etc. and to provide Internet access to passengers via gateways along the road. However, the routing of data packets through the VANET is a complex problem requiring a robust solution since network topology and communication conditions may vary heavily. Protocols for data dissemination play a fundamental role for effective realisation of vehicular network applications.