Survey of Interoperability Challenges in the Internet of Vehicles

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is an active area for innovation and an essential tool in achieving smart cities through the integration of vehicles with the Internet of Things (IoT). IoV is a distributed network that aids in handling the data generated by vehicular sensors and vehicle-to-everything communication (V2X), thus enabling novel applications such as autonomous driving and platooning while increasing safety and energy efficiency. In IoV, the sensors and the interdependent devices relay critical information for the efficient implementation of real-time applications in the ecosystem. Despite all these advancements, a vital challenge is establishing smooth communication among interconnected devices, concretely, interoperability in the IoV—a deceptively simple notion that is not yet fully addressed to achieve a fully integrated ecosystem. This is mainly because the networked domains, such as home, grid, and health care, are developed in silos, operating independently with diverse processes and protocols. Hence, seamless exchange of information is yet to be achieved across the ecosystem, hindering the maximization of the full promise of IoV. In this paper, we provide an in-depth analysis of the present state of interoperability and comprehensively survey the challenges in IoV. We present a taxonomy of interoperability approaches, review solutions that prior work have proposed, and provide insights on how to address the current challenges. Finally, we identify open problems that persist and future directions for research.