Edge-Aided Sensor Data Sharing in Vehicular Communication Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces BiFNoE, a novel edge-assisted method for sensor data sharing in vehicular networks that significantly improves perception accuracy despite sensor noise, with low communication overhead.

Contribution

The paper proposes BiFNoE, a new bidirectional feedback noise estimation method that enhances sensor data fusion in vehicular networks with low bandwidth requirements.

Findings

Perception accuracy improved by around 80% in simulations.

Achieved low communication costs of 12 kbps uplink and 28 kbps downlink.

Effective noise estimation enhances cooperative environment sensing.

Abstract

Sensor data sharing in vehicular networks can significantly improve the range and accuracy of environmental perception for connected automated vehicles. Different concepts and schemes for dissemination and fusion of sensor data have been developed. It is common to these schemes that measurement errors of the sensors impair the perception quality and can result in road traffic accidents. Specifically, when the measurement error from the sensors (also referred as measurement noise) is unknown and time varying, the performance of the data fusion process is restricted, which represents a major challenge in the calibration of sensors. In this paper, we consider sensor data sharing and fusion in a vehicular network with both, vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle communication. We propose a method, named Bidirectional Feedback Noise Estimation (BiFNoE), in which an edge server collects and caches sensor measurement data from vehicles. The edge estimates the noise and the targets alternately in double dynamic sliding time windows and enhances the distributed cooperative environment sensing at each vehicle with low communication costs. We evaluate the proposed algorithm and data dissemination strategy in an application scenario by simulation and show that the perception accuracy is on average improved by around 80 % with only 12 kbps uplink and 28 kbps downlink bandwidth.