Age Analysis of Critical Information in Internet of Vehicle Networks With Service Confluence

The timeliness of critical information (CI) for controlling connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) in Internet of vehicles is investigated, using the age of information (AoI) metric. A service confluence strategy is presented, where two roadside units extract CI packet for a CAV and the CAV adopts the AoI-minimum CI packet for control. We derive the average Age of Information (AoI) for initially synchronized CI packet arrivals, where the CI packets from both RSUs are transmitted at coordinated intervals, ensuring aligned arrival times. We then extend the analysis to asynchronous cases, where the CI packets from the two RSUs may arrive at the CAV at arbitrary, non-coordinated times due to differences in processing delays or timing discrepancies between the servers. Additionally, we consider cases where the service times are irrational numbers, which introduces further complexity in the AoI calculations.