IEEE Wireless Communications • February 2016 22 1536-1284/16/$25.00 © 2016 IEEE
ABSTRACT
In recent years, in-vehicle infotainment net-
works (IVINs) have rapidly become one of the
most valuable features auto makers have used
to promote their flagship models as an advanced
competitive marketing weapon. IVINs can pro-
vide passengers with multimedia services locally
as well as Internet connectivity through a gate-
way known as a mobile hotspot. The in-vehicle
mobile hotspot is embedded in the car and sup-
ports cellular connection. Utilizing this system,
mobile devices can access the in-vehicle unified
infotainment framework to comfortably enjoy
streaming services, online games, online com-
merce, social network services, and so on. How-
ever, because of wireless access characteristics,
if a significant number of Wi-Fi mobile hotspots
are densely located, the throughput of the mobile
devices will be tremendously diminished due to
the interference among the mobile hotspots of
IVINs, as well as with existing fixed office or res-
idential APs along the road. In this article, we
discuss the interference problems of Wi-Fi access
in IVINs, provide effective solutions to these
problems, and present the performance of each
proposed approach within typical case studies.
INTRODUCTION
Today, Internet of Things (IoT) technology is
turning vehicles into the hub of an entire eco-
system of connected services that offer users a
wealth of benefits, including enhanced safety and
security, a richer user experience, and a new suite
of product offerings. Cars have been enabling us
to connect our devices via Bluetooth to make
calls and navigate; however, it is not currently
possible for streaming apps to provide the con-
tent we love without the need to fiddle with our
phones while driving and consume valuable data
plans. By leveraging the always-on connectivity
that IoT provides, today’s connected car man-
ufacturers are providing an entirely new inter-
face for delivering and interacting with streaming
content services. In-vehicular infotainment tech-
nology is the perfect answer for all of our mobile
requirements [1].
The in-vehicular infotainment network
(IVIN) changes the choices of people thinking
about travelling by car. Instead of a boring trip
without anything to do, passengers can now enjoy
various entertainment services as a personal
relaxation experience, including streaming ser-
vices, online games, online commerce, and social
network services. Moreover, the convergence of
all services, content, and connections into one
unified infotainment framework creates a very
convenient environment for passengers as well as
drivers [2]. The IVIN interconnects various ser-
vices, content, and application providers through
mobile data networks such as Long Term Evolu-
tion (LTE) (Fig. 1).
Although application services offered by the
IVIN are interesting to consider, in the scope of
this article, we would like to consider the IVIN
in terms of its connectivity, which is an import-
ant component of a successful system. Due to the
mobility behavior, keeping the IVIN connected
with the outside world while retaining high user
experience is still a question for researchers and
manufacturers. Recently, connected car services
have been researched and developed by a large
number of companies and research organizations
[3]. In fact, this technology has been commercial-
ized by a large number of companies in recent
years. For instance, Ford Motor Company intro-
duced Sync3, based on the Blackberry QNX plat-
form, in order to provide a stable and connected
ecosystem [4]. Of course, there are a lot of pro-
posed technologies that can be utilized to provide
inside and outside connectivity for the IVIN, such
as inter-vehicular communication architecture
[5], cognitive radio enabled vehicles [6], dynamic
bandwidth distribution [7], as well as various other
technologies. However, none of them have been
commercialized yet. The popularity of Wi-Fi sup-
ported devices directs connected car inventions
toward using Wi-Fi as a default acceptable tech-
nology. The fully connected car is assumed to be
equipped with ubiquitous high-speed mobile pack-
et data such as LTE, along with the global posi-
tioning system (GPS) [8]. This vehicle might use
a gateway that transparently distributes LTE data
to users in order to augment the mobile services
through in-vehicle wireless local area networks
(WLANs) such as IEEE 802.11.
WOONGSOO NA, NHU-NGOC DAO, AND SUNGRAE CHO
M ITIGATING W I F I I NTERFERENCE TO
I MPROVE T HROUGHPUT FOR
I N -V EHICLE I NFOTAINMENT N ETWORKS
W IRELESS /M OBILE C ONNECTED E NTERTAINMENT
The authors are with
Chung-Ang University.