An Efficient Neighbor Discovery Method for Cooperative Video Surveillance Services in Internet of Vehicles

The rapid deployment of millions of mobile sensors and smart devices has resulted in high demand for opportunistic encounter-based networking. For the cooperative video surveillance of dashboard cameras in nearby vehicles, a fast and energy-efficient asynchronous neighbor discovery protocol is indispensable because a dashboard camera is an energy-hungry device after the vehicle's engine has turned off. In the existing asynchronous neighbor discovery protocols, all nodes always try to discover all neighbors. However, a dashboard camera needs to discover nearby dashboard cameras when an event is detected. In this paper, we propose a fast and energy-efficient asynchronous neighbor discovery protocol, which enables nodes : 1) to have different roles in neighbor discovery, 2) to discover neighbors within a search range, and 3) to report promptly the exact discovery result. The proposed protocol has two modes: periodic wake-up mode and active discovery mode. A node begins with the periodic wake-up mode to be discovered by other nodes, switches to the active discovery mode on receiving a neighbor discovery request, and returns to the periodic wake-up mode when the active discovery mode finishes. In the periodic wake-up mode, a node wakes up at multiples of number α , where α is determined by the node’s remaining battery power. In the active discovery mode, a node wakes up for consecutive γ slots. Then, the node operating in the active discovery mode can discover all neighbors waking up at multiples of β for β ≤ γ within γ time slots. Since the proposed protocol assigns one half of the duty cycle to each mode, it consumes equal to or less energy than the existing protocols. A performance comparison shows that the proposed protocol outperforms the existing protocols in terms of discovery latency and energy consumption, where the frequency of neighbor discovery requests by car accidents is not constantly high.