Zhou et al. describe a vision of an automobile highway Wi-Fi network, utilizing various IEEE 802.11 standards. As vehicles move (rapidly) past the stationary Wi-Fi antennae, several design issues arise. Among these are received signal power (and attendant error performance, data rate), relatively short dwell time (requiring multiple and frequent hand-offs), and a proposed cooperative arrangement shared by vehicles in proximity to one another. Since the resulting network is static and the vehicles pass by, the “cooperative vehicular communications drive through network” is used as the theme.

The scheme rests on a series of wireless gateway roadside units (RSUs) spaced along the highway. The initial signal strength, quality, and data rate improve as the cars approach the RSU, reach optimal conditions when nearest the RSU, and degrade as the RSU is left behind, causing a time-variable performance. One method to mitigate this variance is to enlist the “vehicle swarm” to create a specially shared and coordinated environment where vehicles communicate and share data from a vehicle with a strong signal to vehicles with weaker signals. This would allow for higher effective throughputs on average for each vehicle in the swarm.

The monograph is organized into five chapters. After an introduction and overview, chapter 3 covers how the vehicles share data access and communicate vehicle to vehicle (V2V) in an attempt to maximize overall system performance. A simulation is presented, and the results are discussed. Chapter 4 discusses the way to achieve optimum delivery of data to the vehicle swarm. A final chapter discusses further research using advanced IEEE 802.11 variants.

While the system under consideration is very interesting, any final implementation cannot be considered without a complete security analysis.

The monograph has several well-drawn illustrations and several graphs showing expected results. Each chapter has many references. A list of acronyms is presented, but there is no index.

A final quibble: The work is chock full of mathematical formulas (all the while omitting complete derivation). While impressive, few interested readers would be qualified to critique or question them.