Simulation platform for a VANET using the

TrueTime toolbox: further result toward

Cyber-Physical Vehicle Systems
Alejandro Garcia-Santiago, Josefina Castaneda-Camacho, Jose F. Guerrero-Castellanos, Gerardo Mino-Aguilar
and V. Yair Ponce-Hinestroza
Faculty of Electronics, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP)
Av. San Claudio y 18 sur Ciudad Universitaria Puebla Pue, Mexico. Email: see http://www.ece.buap.mx

Abstract—Research on Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) has applications in areas as physic, biology and engineering. This
received special attention in the last few years due to their is due to different sectors require the implementation of
particular characteristics as self-organization, scalability, easy dynamic systems, integrated and coordinated by a cooperative,
deployment and low cost. Vehicle Ad-Hoc Network (VANET)
is basically a special form of MANET, which is formed by a distributed and intelligent scheme. In addition, they can offer
group of wireless nodes, which can dynamically form a network flexibility and reconfigurability to preserve their quality and
to exchange information without the necessity of using a fixed productivity. Example of this is the Industry 4.0 [2].
network infrastructure, which make them ideal for use in several The term agent concerns to the meaning of autonomy
applications such as environment sensors, vehicular communica- that means self-activity for its objectives achievement. Agents
tions, disaster rescue operations, air/land/navy defense and so
on. In this paper a simulation platform for a VANET which interact, collaborate, coordinate and negotiate in a system that
integrates communications and control system to achieve stability was designed and implemented as a multi-agent scenario. A
using TrueTime 2.0 is presented. It is able to use wireless multi-agent architecture is based on cooperative intelligent
communications, AODV routing protocol, distributed event-based entities and has been developed for the integration of design,
control and gives a graphical representation of communication manufacturing and shop-floor control activities [3]. The main
components (nodes). Besides, given that a trusty communication
guarantee the stability of the system and it achieve a consensus, coordination types are listed below.
special attention is paid in the wireless communication perfor- a) Centralized multi-agent coordination (or coordinator
mance and the metrics of delivery rate, end-to-end delay and agents). In which one central agent undertakes the collection
throughput. of partial plans from agents, combines them in a plan and
The simulation results represent the base for future develop- solves possible conflicts [3].
ment of collaborative control protocols for Cyber-Physical Vehicle
Systems and show the applicability and usability of the proposed b) Decentralized multi-agent coordination (or autonomous
simulation platform in future works. agents). In which agents are not controlled by a central agent
although they communicate with each other to creating their
Index Terms—AODV, control event, routing protocols,
Simulink, TrueTime2.0, VANET. plans and the solution of possible arguments [3].

Unfortunately, due to the fact that a network is present

I. I NTRODUCTION in the feedback loop, it is possible to appreciate the impact
A cyber-physical system (CPS) is the next generation of in terms of performance due to delays and/or the losses
system that requires a solid integration of computing, com- of data in networks of shared communication. It avoids
munications, and control technologies to achieve stability, complying with the real-time specification which may cause
performance, reliability, robustness, and efficiency in dealing the instability of the system [2], [3]. Under this approach,
with physical systems of many application domains. A cyber- the wireless mobile networks are becoming increasingly
physical vehicle system (CPVS), ranging from automobile popular due to they provide users access whenever they
to aircraft and marine craft, is composed of tightly-coupled need (communication anytime and anywhere). Relevant
locomotion, computational and communications components. features, wireless network can be classified in two types:
Historically, CPVS development has been driven by advances Infrastructured or Infrastructureless [4], [5].
in closely-related (but not identical) autonomous vehicle re-
search and cooperative vehicle control to increase system Infrastructured wireless networks. The base stations are
capacity and improve safety and efficiency. CPS research fixed and they have a specific range where the mobile nodes
generally aims to synergistically integrate control, computing, can move while communicating as long as they keep into the
communications and physical systems in novel ways that take coverage area. However, when a node goes out of the range of
advantage of the interdependent behavior [1]. a base station, it can get into the range of another base station
Currently, because of the features of CPVS there has been whether there is one available, otherwise this node will be
an increment in the interest over the multi-agent systems without connection. This kind of network can be seen as the
(MAS) that are found related to a wide range of potential conventional wireless mobile networks.

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978-1-5386-6358-5/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
 Infrastructureless or MANETs. There are no fixed base Due to the fact that the control use consensus to reach the
stations and the network nodes operate as routers. For this desired position, this needs to know its position and that of its
reason, the mobile nodes can move while communicating at neighbors to generate the event signal. The control evaluate
anytime. They are changing from one to another position the system each 100 ms, in others words, the communication
frequently and establishing a route among them to create their system has to guarantee that the requested from other nodes
own network [5]. be received before 100 ms.
Currently, many studies are focused on MANETs due to According to this requirements make it easy to see the
their dynamic topology, scalability, easy deployment and no importance of a good coordination of both systems to reach
centralized administration. In this case, the communication the consensus and guarantee the stability of the system. In this
problems faced by MAS can be solved with the application of case, the communication system is regulated by the control. In
ad hoc networks; this is called VANET which is basically an fig. 1 is possible to see the event signal generated (continuous
ad hoc network oriented to vehicles [4], [6]. blue line) by the control. This indicate to the node that its
Although there are widely information about simulators that data (position and velocity) need to be sent to another node.
allow to create and evaluate an infinity of designs either in Here, the communication system evaluate if a link is available
control or communication systems (NS2, OMNET++, Matlab, with the receiver node (nodes inside the transition radio) or a
etc.) only a few of them are able to perform simulations routing protocol is necessary to reach it.
which take into account both areas [7], [8]. It means that The performance of a VANET is widely related to the effi-
if a communications system is evaluated using a typically ciency of routing protocols which depends on several factors
network simulator, many metrics about its performance can such as convergence time after topology changes, bandwidth
be calculated from communications perspective (see section overhead to enable proper routing, and power consumption. In
III). However, if the addition of a conventional control is the reference [11] authors evaluate two different protocols for
required in order to improve or propose a more complete a mobile network of four nodes. According to that results the
system, its implementation could be turn complicated due to AODV routing protocol is considered the most efficient. For
the software was designed to networks evaluations. Taking this this reason, the AODV routing protocol is considered in this
into account, one of the principals trouble that need to be platform.
faced by the new simulation are the operation times that each
system (control and communication) demand, as well as the
interaction between them.
Based on this, our paper present a simulation platform
Control Control
which integrates communications and control system to Node1 Node2 Event
Data Event Data
achieve stability using TrueTime 2.0. The principal goal of signal signal

this platform is obtaining a better simulation with a close

connection to the reality, hence it is able to use wireless com-
munications, AODV routing protocol and distributed event-
based control, gives a graphical representation of communica-
tion components and control responses. Besides, the principal
metrics of evaluation networks can be obtained (see section
III).
To evaluate and demonstrate the applicability and usability
of the proposed platform, a simulation of four vehicles (MAS) Data Node4
Event
signal
Data Node3
Event
signal

that perform a formation under a control strategy called Control Control

consensus and a VANET as form of communication between

them is done and the results are shown in this manuscript.
Communication
Transmission Wireless
system
radio link
(Node)

II. S IMULATION PLATFORM

Fig. 1: VANET proposal for 4 robots vehicles.
The platform was developed using the TrueTime2.0 toolbox
that is a free Matlab /Simulink-based library for real-time The fig. 2 presents the simulation platform for a VANET.
control systems. This one facilitates co-simulation of controller The blocks within the red line correspond to the control sys-
task execution in real-time kernels, network transmissions, and tem. This receives the data (rcvdata1, rcvdata2, rcvdata3,
continuous plant dynamics [9], [10]. Making use of these char- and rcvdata4) of its neighbors according to the topology
acteristics, the platform is able to integrate a communications shown in fig. 1. According to the values obtained, it decides
and control system. whether or not it is necessary to send the data to its neighbor-
The fig. 1 shows a general view of the simulation done. ing nodes through to the event signal (event1, event2, event3
It consists of 4 mobile nodes (vehicles), each node has and even4).
its communication and control system. The first one is a On the other hand, the blocks within the blue line cor-
distributed event-based control and the second is a VANET respond to the communications system. It has four mobile
which use an AODV routing protocol to delivery their packets. nodes, an animation block and the wireless network block. The

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 x x1
y y1
[X1s] X1 x1
x2
x3
x_1 rcvdata1
[X1hats] x1 hats x_2 Interpreted Interpreted
x_3 rcvdata1
MATLAB Fcn MATLAB Fcn
who
[event1]
Node 1 data ordering
n1
Consensus 1->2 E vent1
E vent2 [event2]
Control system
x x2
[X2s] X2
y
x1
y2 x1
Communication system Node1
E vent3 [event3]
px1
x2 x2 E vent4 [event4]
x3 rcvdata2 Interpreted Interpreted py1
x_1 rcvdata2 x3 MATLAB Fcn MATLAB Fcn X1s [X1s]
[X2hats] x_2 Node2
[X1s] px2
X2 hats x_3 data ordering consensus 2->3y4
X2s [X2s]
who x4 n2 [X2s] py2
x x Interpreted
Node 2 X3s [X3s] [X3s] MATLAB Fcn px3
1 S chedule [X4s]
x x3 Node3 X4s [X4s] Positions
y3 y1 y py3
y y Network Interpreted Interpreted
[X3s] X3 x1 rcvdata3 X1_hats [X1hats]
TrueTime Wireless S chedule MATLAB Fcn MATLAB Fcn px4
x2 y2
x3 Animation Network X2_hats [X2hats]
data ordering Consensus 3->2y4 py4
x_1 rcvdata3 Node4
x_2 y3 n3 X3_hats [X3hats]
[X3hats] X3 hats x_3 X4_hats
who [X4hats]
y4 Distributed
Node 3
Interpreted Interpreted E vent-Based Control
x x4 rcvdata4
y4 MATLAB Fcn MATLAB Fcn
y
[X4s] X4 x1 data ordering Consensus 4->2y3
x2
x3 n4
x_1 rcvdata4
[X4hats] X4 hats x_2
x_3
who
Node 4

Fig. 2: Simulation platform for a VANET using the TrueTime toolbox.

system works as follows: each node has its position, identifier, TABLE I: Possible sending requests generated by the control
data that must be sent (Xns and Xn hats) and four event
signal (eventx) as shown in fig. 3. Once an event signal is Node1 Node2 Node3 Node4 Sending sequence
1 1 1 1 1-2-3-4
received the node look all the nodes inside of its transmission 1 1 1 0 1-2-3
1 1 0 1 1-2-4
radio. if the receiver node is here the communication is direct 1 1 0 0 1-2
if not, it uses the AODV algorithm to find a route through other 1 0 1 1 1-3-4
1 0 1 0 1-3
nodes. It means that the sender node can use others nodes as 1 0 0 1 1-4
0 1 1 1 2-3-4
a router to sent its packets to the receiver even though this is 0 1 1 0 2-3
far away of its transmission area. 0 1 0 1 2-4
0 0 1 1 3-4

px1
py1
[event1]
3
[event2] 4
x1
[event3] D/A em 5
x2
6
x3
[event4] A/D 1: 1 7
x_1
8
x_2
S chedule 9
x_3
1 em who
Monitor
X1 TrueTime Kernel

2 em
x1 hats

In1
Out1 In2
2 Y Position
y
In1
Out1 In2
1
X Postion
x
S chedule1

Fig. 3: Diagram of a node.

It is worth mentioning that the simplest and fastest data

transfers are generated when a single node transmits in a time
slot; however, this does not occurs the most part of the time.
Given that there are time slots where multiple agents wish to
transmit simultaneously (multiple flags in the same time slot),
it is necessary to create a slot that allow each node to transmit
at a certain time and thus avoid collisions. Giving solution to Fig. 4: Simulation of the distributed event-based control using
this problem, 11 critical cases were found, which are shown in Virtual Reality Toolbox.
table I. The sending sequence proposed gives the best results TABLE II: Position in meters of the formation realize in the
in terms of packet delays and delivery. simulation.
Fig.4 shows the simulation performed by the complete
Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4
system on this platform. It consists of four mobile nodes, x1 y1 x2 y2 x3 y3 x4 y4
which start from initials positions and perform a formation Inicial position 50 20 20 40 30 60 -40 80
Final position 16.5 50 15.51 49.99 14.5 50 13.5 50
over the x-axis (see table II) .
Finally, the table III shows the parameters considered by
the communications system.

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TABLE III: Parameters considered in the TrueTime Wireless .
.
Network block. .

Time: 2.0969| A new route has been established between Node#2 and Nodo#1
---> 2 1 <---
Parameter Value 1 data messages in buffer
Sending buffered message 1 to Node#1
Network type 802.11b Buffer emptied
Network Number 1 Time: 2.0998| A new route has been established between Node#2 and Node#4
---> 2 4 <---
Number of nodes: 4 1 data messages in buffer
Data rate (bits/s) 1M Sending buffered message 1 to Node#4
Buffer vaciado
Minimum frame size (bits) 512 Application | Node#3 receiving data: 35 2 3 15.49891 50.00094 -0.0002353861
Transmit power (dbm) 24.4994 15.49921 50.00038 -0.0005164576 100 time: 2.1189
Receiver signal threshold (dbm) -45.68 .
.
Pathloss exponent 3.5 .
ACK timeout (s) 0.00004
Retry limit 5
Error coding threshold 0.03 Fig. 5: Report of events generated during the simulation.

the animationblock. These positions can be verified with the

III. E VALUATION METRICS FOR THE VANET figures 7 and 8, which indicate the trajectory of the agents on
According to [5] and [12]–[16], it is possible to get the the x and y axes. This responses are obtained from the control
basic metrics which are used to showing the performance of block .
the routing protocols in a VANET.
200

• Packet Delivery Rate (PDR)

shows how successful a protocol performs delivering 150

packets from source to destination. It can be characterized 100

as 4

3
m 50
2

Rp
∗ 100
1

P DR = (1)
Sp 0

where Rp is the total packets received and Sp is the -50

total packets sent. -100

• End-to-End Delay (E2ED) It is measured in seconds and -150

calculates all possible delays occurred in the networks. -200

-200 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 200
The average E2ED can be defined as the time calculated m
52
for a data packet to be transmitted from source to
destination across a FANET. 4 3 2 1

m 50

E2ED = TR − TS (2)
48
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

where TR is receive time and TS is sent time. m

Fig. 6: Animation window of the simulation.

• Throughput (Thp) The average throughput is the aver-
age number of bits arrived per second at destination node.
This is used as a measure of the reliability of the protocol
under different conditions, hence the average throughput
in the network needs to be as higher as possible [16].
Mathematically it can be defined as,
m

Np ∗ packetsize
Average thp = (3)
Seconds
where Np is the number of bits received successfully by
all destinations.
sec
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
Once the simulation started, the system sends the data every Fig. 7: Response of consensus convergence for x-axis
time the control requires them. At the same time, the system
generates a report of its events, which are displayed in the The platform besides to show the events of the network, it
Matlab terminal (as shown in fig. 5). generates three vectors at the end of the simulation: Routing
The simulation takes about 10 sec to achieve the consensus. table, Sent data and Received data (see table IV). The idea
The fig. 6 shows the trajectory of the nodes generated by of these three vectors, arise with the necessity of generate a

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 in this platform is the synchronization of the systems times,
due to they work with different samples times. However, it
was possible to figure out thanks to the execution of tasks
and interrupt handlers given by the TrueTime 2.0. On another
m hand, one limitation of this platform is that can be unfriendly
with the user, because of the TrueTime blocks have to be
programing and some Simulink blocks has compatibility issues
with them. So, it could be necessary to program a block that
replace them. For this reason, it is important that the user has
programming skills.
sec

Fig. 8: Response of consensus convergence for y-axis ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors appreciate the contributions of CONACYT and
BUAP VIEP projects to be possible this research.
report similar to that of Ns2. Thanks to this, now it is possible
to program an algorithm that allows executing the evaluation
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