SDN-enabled vehicular networks: Theory and practice within platooning applications

With the recent developments of communication technologies surrounding vehicles, we witness the simultaneous availability of multiple onboard communication interfaces on vehicles. While most of the current interfaces already include Bluetooth, WiFi, and LTE, they are augmented further by IEEE 802.11p and the 5G interfaces, which will serve for safety, maintenance, and infotainment applications. However, dynamic management of interfaces depending on application becomes a significant issue that can be best addressed by Software Defined Networking (SDN) capabilities. While SDN-based vehicular networks have been promoted previously, none of these works deal with practical challenges. In this paper, we propose and develop a practical framework that realizes SDN-based vehicular networks for a wide range of applications. Through this framework, we demonstrate a truck platooning application as a use case in which the two truck platoons strive to merge and establish connectivity. The route from source vehicle (i.e., Platoon Leader A) to destination (i.e., Platoon Leader B) is computed with the help of the SDN Controller to transmit the Beacon Safety Messages through Road Side Units (RSUs) at the MAC layer without relying on IP for proper platooning operations. The results show the efficiency of the SDN-based approach compared to the traditional routing approaches.