Modeling Cellular Network Infrastructure in SUMO

Abstract

Communication networks are becoming an increasingly important part of the mobility system. They allow traffic participants to be connected and to exchange information related to traffic and roads. The information exchange impacts the behavior of traffic participants, such as the selection of travel routes or their mobility dynamics. Considering infrastructure-based networks, the information exchange depends on the availability of the network infrastructure and the quality of the communication links. Specifically in urban areas, today’s 4G and 5G networks deploy small cells of high capacity, which do not provide ubiquitous cellular coverage due to their small range, signal blocking, etc. Therefore, the accurate modeling of the network infrastructure and its integration in simulation scenarios in microscopic traffic simulation software is gaining relevance.

Unlike traffic infrastructure, such as traffic lights, the simulation of a cellular network infrastructure is not natively supported in SUMO. Instead, the protocols, functions and entities of the communication system with the physical wireless transmission are modeled in a dedicated and specialized network simulator that is coupled with SUMO. The disadvantage of this approach is that the simulated SUMO entities, typically vehicles, are not aware which portions of the roads are covered by wireless cells and what quality the wireless communication links have.

In this paper, we propose a method for modeling the cellular infrastructure in SUMO that introduces a cellular coverage layer to SUMO. This layer models cell sites in a regular hexagonal grid, where each site is served by a base station. Following commonly accepted guidelines for the evaluation of cellular communication system, the method facilitates standardized and realistic modeling of the cellular coverage, including cell sites, antenna characteristics, cell association and handover. In order to ease the applicability of the method, we describe the work flow to create cell sites. As a representative case, we have applied the method to InTAS, the SUMO Ingolstadt traffic scenario and applied real data for the cellular infrastructure. We validate the approach by simulating a Cellular V2X system with sidelink connectivity in an urban macro cell environment by coupling SUMO enhanced by the proposed connectivity sublayer with ARTERY-C, a network simulator for Cellular V2X. As a proof-of-concept, we present a signal-to-interference noise ratio (SINR) coverage map and further evaluate the impact of different types of interference. We also demonstrate the effect of advanced features of cellular networks such as inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) and sidelink communication modes of Cellular V2X with dynamic switching between the in-coverage and out-of-coverage mode.