Traffic-Aware Sensing-Based Semi-Persistent Scheduling for High Efficacy of C-V2X Networks

3GPP has introduced C-V2X technology in the Rel. 14 for improving road safety. There are two modes of vehicular communication in C-V2X viz., Mode 3 and Mode 4. Since Mode 4 allows vehicles to communicate with each other even outside the cellular coverage, it is acknowledged as the baseline mode. In Mode 4, vehicles select the best available least interfered radio resource by utilising Semi-Persistent Scheduling (SPS) in a distributed fashion. Medium Access Control (MAC) parameters like pKeep (probability of keeping a radio resource) and Resource Counter (RC) affect the duration of radio resource collision, so these need to be configured carefully for efficient C-V2X communication. This paper explicates the impact of pKeep and RC on the overall performance of C-V2X system. A new algorithm called Traffic-Aware SPS (TA-SPS) is then proposed, which optimally configures these parameters according to the current density of road traffic by estimating it from periodic Cooperative Awareness Messages (CAMs) broadcasted by the vehicles. By reducing the number of resource collisions, TA-SPS increases transmission reliability of the C-V2X system. Through extensive simulation studies, we show how TA-SPS outperforms the traditional SPS in mixed road traffic scenarios.