DSRC versus 4G-LTE for Connected Vehicle Applications: A Study on Field Experiments of Vehicular Communication Performance

TLDR

Dedicated short‑range communication (DSRC) and 4G‑LTE are the two most widely used candidate technologies for connected‑vehicle applications. This study aims to compare DSRC and 4G‑LTE to determine which standard best satisfies the road‑safety, traffic‑efficiency, and infotainment requirements of V2X scenarios. A field testbed was built that integrates DSRC roadside units, 4G‑LTE cellular stations, and vehicle on‑board terminals, and three application scenarios—collision avoidance, traffic‑text broadcast, and multimedia download—were evaluated using a custom software tool that records GPS data and communication performance under varied conditions. The results show that 4G‑LTE is preferable for non‑safety applications such as traffic information, file download, and internet access, whereas DSRC outperforms 4G‑LTE for safety applications like collision avoidance and electronic traffic signs.

Abstract

Dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) and 4G-LTE are two widely used candidate schemes for Connected Vehicle (CV) applications. It is thus of great necessity to compare these two most viable communication standards and clarify which one can meet the requirements of most V2X scenarios with respect to road safety, traffic efficiency, and infotainment. To the best of our knowledge, almost all the existing studies on comparing the feasibility of DRSC or LTE in V2X applications use software-based simulations, which may not represent realistic constraints. In this paper, a Connected Vehicle test-bed is established, which integrates the DSRC roadside units, 4G-LTE cellular communication stations, and vehicular on-board terminals. Three Connected Vehicle application scenarios are set as Collision Avoidance, Traffic Text Message Broadcast, and Multimedia File Download, respectively. A software tool is developed to record GPS positions/velocities of the test vehicles and record certain wireless communication performance indicators. The experiments have been carried out under different conditions. According to our results, 4G-LTE is more preferred for the nonsafety applications, such as traffic information transmission, file download, or Internet accessing, which does not necessarily require the high-speed real-time communication, while for the safety applications, such as Collision Avoidance or electronic traffic sign, DSRC outperforms the 4G-LTE.