Efficient caching strategy in content‐centric networking for vehicular ad‐hoc network applications

Recently, content‐centric networking (CCN) has been proposed as a promising solution for content distribution in vehicular ad‐hoc networks (VANETs) owing to its named‐data routing and in‐network caching characteristics. In this network, the caching strategies are performed in the intermediate nodes, and even in the vehicular storage space. However, the typically existing caching strategies have indicated the low stored contents efficiency due to the peculiarities of VANET environment, like cache redundancy, high mobility, rapidly changing topology, and limited vehicular storage space. In this study, the authors proposed an efficient caching strategy in vehicle‐to‐vehicle scenario through CCN, which considers the requirements of different types of applications, the crucial features of data, and the peculiarities of the vehicular network (e.g. content popularity, cache occupancy, the stability link of the vehicles, and user's preference). Each vehicle makes its caching decision independently to improve the cache space and efficient use of the stored contents corresponding to the requirements of different application types. Simulation results validate that the proposed strategy outperforms other caching strategies in terms of reducing data retrieval delay, increasing cache hit ratio, and improving the cache performance on the vehicles.