Signal-Aware Route Planning

Abstract: Modern vehicles have an increasing number of advanced features requiring network coverage in order to function properly. In order to facilitate the requirements of such features and allow more advanced applications, we consider the possibility of planning routes that take signal strength into consideration. Previous work have shown the relationship between TCP throughput/goodput and signal strength. In this thesis signal-aware route planning is presented, implemented, and validated. Crowd-sourced map and signal data (3G) from two sources is used for building a signal coverage map. The signal and map data is validated in a field experiment, where routes were travelled while measuring the signal strength. The field experiment showed gains in signal characteristics when deviating from the shortest possible path. The average signal strength increased by 11 dBm between algorithms and the shortest possible path. Lastly, routes were planned for all possible sources and destinations in a given urban area. The results of this calculation confirms the patterns found in the field experiment.