Software Defined Radio-Based Long-Term Evolution for Infrastructure-Based Vulnerable Road Users Safety: A Field Demonstration

The limited connectivity of vehicles presents a notable challenge, as their inability to establish communication with other vehicles and pedestrians can lead to safety concerns, particularly for vulnerable road users (VRUs). The Infrastructure-to-Pedestrian (I2P) communication pathway can play a vital role in mitigating these safety concerns, as implementing I2P is expected to significantly enhance safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. The Third Generation Partnership Program (3GPP) introduced cellular vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication with the release for 3GPP Release 14 in 2017. In this paper, we conduct an extensive review of V2I and I2P communication, and then present a Long-Term Evolution (LTE)-I2P communication architecture. We later describe key ideas of software-defined networks and their concepts for I2P services. Additionally, we conduct a field test of I2P LTE-based communication and assess its feasibility. The urban connected testbed in downtown Chattanooga, “MLK Smart Corridor,” services is the experimental platform for this assessment. Performance indicators like average end-to-end (E2E) latency and packet delivery ratio (PDR) are used for comparison.