Intelligent Congestion Control in the Internet of Vehicles Employing Network Slicing in 5G Architecture

Abstract

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is a decentralized network architecture that enables autonomous driving, real-time applications, infotainment services, and seamless vehicle-to-everything communication. While infotainment systems enhance the user experience by providing entertainment and navigation features, their high data demands can cause network congestion, potentially delaying mission-critical messages and compromising safety and reliability. Further, the increasing volume of connected devices and data traffic exacerbates these challenges, resulting in high latency, low throughput, and reduced network efficiency. To address this, we propose a novel lightweight adaptive network slicing strategy with four dedicated slices and priority-weighted dynamic bandwidth allocation for IoV networks to mitigate congestion and ensure the availability of the required bandwidth for critical communications. The proposed mechanism defines four distinct network slices, allocating resources to balance infotainment and mission-critical needs. Simulation results demonstrate that our approach achieves ultra-low latency (<5 ms), near-zero packet loss (<0.5%), and high throughput (53 Mbps for infotainment), significantly outperforming existing methods, and ensuring reliable communication for safety-critical tasks while improving spectrum utilization. Findings validate implementing network slicing in IoV environments, paving the way for efficient, congestion-free, and high-performance vehicular networks.