A Path Loss and Shadowing Model for Multilink Vehicle-to-Vehicle Channels in Urban Intersections

The non line-of-sight (NLOS) scenario in urban intersections is critical in terms of traffic safety—a scenario where Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication really can make a difference by enabling communication and detection of vehicles around building corners. A few NLOS V2V channel models exist in the literature but they all have some form of limitation, and therefore further research is need. In this paper, we present an alternative NLOS path loss model based on analysis from measured V2V communication channels at 5.9 GHz between six vehicles in two urban intersections. We analyze the auto-correlation of the large scale fading process and the influence of the path loss model on this. In cases where a proper model for the path loss and the antenna pattern is included, the de-correlation distance for the auto-correlation is as low as 2–4 m, and the cross-correlation for the large scale fading between different links can be neglected. Otherwise, the de-correlation distance has to be much longer and the cross-correlation between the different communication links needs to be considered separately, causing the computational complexity to be unnecessarily large. With these findings, we stress that vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) simulations should be based on the current geometry, i.e., a proper path loss model should be applied depending on whether the V2V communication is blocked or not by other vehicles or buildings.