A Comparative Evaluation of Propagation Characteristics of Vehicular VLC and MMW Channels

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is an underlying key technology to realize future intelligent transportation systems. Both millimeter wave (MMW) communication and visible light communication (VLC) are strong candidates to address V2V connectivity. Most of the earlier literature focuses on an individual technology. In an effort to better highlight the differences and relative advantages of these two competing technologies, we provide a comprehensive one-to-one comparison between vehicular VLC and MMW channels in this article. For this purpose, we utilize ray tracing simulations which enable the consideration of three-dimensional modeling of the propagation environment and allow the study of various system parameters and road conditions in both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight conditions. Under the same settings, we present the received signal strengths for both systems and investigate the channel characteristics for communication between two vehicles in the same lane as well as in different lanes with a lateral shift. We also analyze the impact of low, medium, and high density of neighbor vehicles as well as partial and complete blockage.