Group data communication in connected vehicles: A survey

Cooperative vehicular networks have yielded remarkable research results to enable the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) for safe, reliable, convenient, and comfortable driving experience. However, high vehicular mobility, intermittent communication, and frequent network fragmentation hinder the reliable and successful data communication in cooperative vehicular networks. In this paper, we hover the existing group data communication strategies, their common aim is to deliver data to vehicles within a specific group. As the transmission bandwidth is restricted in wireless environments of Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANET) same as all mobile wireless networks, group data communication is critical for an efficient usage of network resources. To this end, many solutions have been proposed for VANET. In this paper, we briefly summarize the different group data communication in VANET with a detailed synthesis and comparison of all discussed protocols. Furthermore, we classify group-VANET communication into: (i) routing strategy-based and (ii) Quality of Service (QoS)-awareness communication. Moreover, the performance of all protocols is analyzed by comparing their security parameters. Finally, open challenges and future research directions are discussed.