SimulatorBridger: System for Monitoring Energy Efficiency of Electric Vehicles in Real-World Traffic Simulations

Abstract

: The increasing popularity and attention in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) have prompted researchers to develop accurate and realistic simulation tools. Realistic simulation for VANETs is challenging due to the high mobility of vehicles and the need to integrate various communication modalities such as Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) interactions. Existing simulators lack the capability to simulate VANET environments based on IoT infrastructure. In this work, we propose SimulatorBridger, a novel simulator that bridges IoTSim-OsmosisRES with SUMO, a traffic simulator, to simulate VANET environments with integrated IoT infrastructure. Our study focuses on analyzing the generated dataflows from V2I and V2V interactions and their impact on vehicle energy efficiency. Even though On-Board Units (OBUs) appear to have insignificant energy demands compared to other vehicle energy consumptions such as electric motors or auxiliary systems (HVAC, lights, comfort facilities), we found a near-perfect correlation between the intensity of communication dataflows and the battery consumption. This correlation indicates that increased communication activity can contribute to an increase in overall energy consumption. Furthermore, we propose future research directions, including traffic rerouting based on battery consumption optimization, which can be efficiently tested using our simulation platform. By including communication energy costs in the design of energy-efficient vehicular networks, these insights contribute to a deeper understanding of energy management in VANETs.