1
Decentralized Subchannel Scheduling for C-V2X Mode-4:
A Non-Standard Configuration for CAM Retransmissions
Luis F. Abanto-Leon
l.f.abanto@ieee.org
Abstract—In Release 14, 3GPP introduced a novel paradigm
arXiv:1912.13137v1 [eess.SP] 31 Dec 2019
known as cellular vehicle–to–everything (C-V2X) mode-4 to
specifically support vehicular communications in scenarios with-
out network coverage. Such a scheme has been devised to operate
distributedly harnessing a sensing mechanism whereby vehicles
can monitor the received power across subchannels. Based on
the measured power intensities, vehicles autonomously select a
suitable subchannel over which safety messages are broadcasted.
The selected subchannel is utilized by the vehicle for a short
period of time before releasing it to select another subchannel.
In this work, we propose a scheduling approach based on the
aforementioned technology. We assume the existence of a primary
sub-band that supports semi-persistently reserved subchannels
(as specified by 3GPP). In addition, we also consider that there
exist auxiliary sub-bands that convey random re-transmissions
in order to improve reception reliability. Different configurations
of the proposed approach are explored and their performance
are assessed using real vehicular traces.
Index Terms—subchannel scheduling, power sensing, vehicular
communications, mode-4, sidelink
I. I NTRODUCTION
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has included
in Release 14, Cellular Vehicle–to–Everything (C-V2X) com-
munications as one of the novel disruptive technologies under
the umbrella of 5G. In light of the high dynamicity and
unpredictability of the vehicular ecosystem, C-V2X communi-
cations is expected to be a dependable technology capable of
coping with time-varying vehicular densities while meeting
stringent latency and reliability requirements. Guaranteeing
such essentialities will prove advantageous for a plethora of
use cases, e.g. preventing road traffic accidents [1]. The type
of messages typically exchanged in safety-related applications
are periodic cooperative awareness messages (CAMs), which
convey information about speed, position, direction, etc. of
each vehicle [2], [9].
C-V2X outlines two types of scheduling schemes known as
mode-3 and mode-4. The former one is a centralized scheme
that harnesses cellular infrastructure to suitably distribute the
sidelink subchannels among the vehicles in network coverage
[3], [12], [13]. Contrastingly, mode-4 has been engineered
to operate autonomously and distributedly without network
support. Thus, vehicles monitor the received power on each
subchannel and select an appropriate one for their own usage.
Exploiting an strategy of sensing and selection [10], [11],
[14], [15], vehicles attempt to fulfill a two-fold objective: (ii)
improve the likelihood of their own messages being received
reliably and (i) not affect the conditions of subchannels being
utilized by other vehicles. An indisputable advantage of mode-
3 is that subchannels can be more efficiently utilized as
eNodeBs can consolidate an humongous knowledge of all ve-
hicles in coverage. Furthermore, due to coherent orchestration
between eNodeBs, subchannel assignments free of conflicts
can be attained [5]. Nonetheless, signaling between vehicles
and eNodeBs via uplink/downlink may pose a challenge in
terms of latency exigencies. Conversely, in mode-4 due to
absence of a central controller, latency owing to signaling
and scheduling processing is nonexistent. On the downside,
however, limited local knowledge at each vehicle may hinder
the selection of a subchannel that is evenly fair for all vehicles
in the system. As a consequence of uncoordinated strategies,
several vehicles may compete over the same resources thus
provoking collisions and leading to severe degradation of the
packet reception ratio (PRR).
In order to diminish the occurrences of conflicts, 3GPP
proposed the standardization of a semi-persistent scheduling
(SPS) scheme [4] with the purpose of making the utilization
of subchannels more trackable and anticipatable. SPS allows
vehicles to comprehend which subchannels are being reserved
on a quasi-steady basis. Thus, fostering a more rational selec-
tion of subchannels to prevent conflicts. Given the necessity of
further boosting reception reliability, we propose a scheduling
approach with multiple sub-bands where a primary sub-band
mandatorily performs SPS to endow predictability (as defined
by 3GPP). In addition, auxiliary sub-bands are defined to
effectuate random re-transmissions acting as second-tier sup-
ports. To wit, all sub-bands are contained within a 10 MHz
intelligent transportation systems (ITS) band.
The paper is structured as follows. Section II describes the
concept of semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) for C-V2X mode-
4. Section III explains in detail the proposed decentralized
scheduling scheme. Section IV is devoted to simulations and
discussion. Finally, Section V summarizes our conclusions.
II. S EMI -P ERSISTENT S CHEDULING FOR C-V2X-M ODE 4
For the purpose of depicting the SPS operation consider
Fig. 1, which shows a single sub-band f . Every sub-band has
a bandwidth of B MHz, which has been fragmented into a
number of time partitions—hereinafter called subchannels. A
subchannel is capable of transporting a safety CAM message
and consists of a number of resource blocks (RBs) that are
exactly contained within a subframe of 1 ms extent [4].
Moreover, since a message rate ∆CAM = 10 Hz has been
assumed [2], in each sub-band exist 100 subchannels with
periodicity Tw = 1/∆CAM = 100 ms. When a vehicle self-
allocates a subchannel in a semi-persistent manner, it will
broadcast on such resource periodically during TSPS ms, upon
 2

(1,k)
100 − F candidates (at most). The power εi perceived

k = 100

k = 100
k = 1
subchannel
by vehicle vi at each primary subchannel s(1,k) is computed
k = 2

k = 3

k = 4

k = 5

k = 6

k = 1

k = 2

k = 3
(f,k)
s
... ... ... by (1), where V (k) represents the set of all the vehicles vj
sub-band f
B Hz

... ...
... ... ... n = Nw
broadcasting on primary/auxiliary subchannels of subframe k.
n =1 n =2
On the other hand, Si = Siprim ∪Siaux denotes the set of alloted
Tw = 100 ms message rate-dependent time window Tw
TSP S = Nw Tw
subchannels to vehicle vi in the last time window n = Nw .
The transmit power of vehicle vj is represented by Pj = PT ,
Fig. 1: SPS operation principle which is assumed to be the same for all units. The antenna
gains of the transmitter and receiver are Gt and Gr , respec-
whose termination a new reservation will be required. For tively. The parameter Xij is a log-normal random variable with
instance, in Fig. 1 the subchannel in subframe k = 3 is being standard deviation Xσ representing shadow fading experienced
persistently utilized every Tw ms and such reservation pattern by the link between vehicles vi and vj . In addition, P Lij =
remains unchanged during Nw = TSPS/Tw consecutive time max{P Lfree-space
ij , P LB
ij } depicts the path loss between vi and
1

windows. vj , where the first and second terms denote power attenuation
based on free-space and WINNER + UMi (B1 ) [8] models,
III. P ROPOSED S CHEDULING A PPROACH respectively. Ip is a weighting factor to depict the power level
contributed by subchannels Sj onto subchannel s(1,k) . Notice
There exist F sub-bands contained within a 10 MHz ITS
that for every vehicle vj ∈ V (k) , Sj ∩ {∪Fp=1 s
(p,k)
}=6 ∅ holds.
channel. The primary sub-band reserves subchannels on a prim (p=1,k)
semi-persistent basis to add predictability whereas the F − 1 Thus, if Sj 6= ∅ then s is being utilized by vj and
remaining auxiliary sub-bands execute random retransmissions therefore Ip=1 = 1. On the other hand, if Sjaux 6= ∅, then vj
in order to boost the packet reception reliability. Let s(f,k) is broadcasting on at least one auxiliary subchannel, in which
denote the subchannel in sub-band f (for f = 1, 2, . . . , F ) case Ip6=1 ≤ 1. This former case represents the influence of in-
and subframe k (for k = 1, 2, . . . , 100) as depicted in Fig. band emissions (IBE), i.e. power leaking from auxiliary sub-
1. Thus, S (f ) = {s(f,1) , . . . , s(f,100) } represents the complete channels s(p6=1,k) to the primary subchannel s(1,k) . Regardless
set of subchannels in sub-band f . The proposed scheduling of the utilized sub-band, when vehicle vi is transmitting on
scheme is depicted in Fig. 2 and consists of the following subframe k, the sensed power on the corresponding primary
(1,k)
three phases. subchannel s(1,k) is unknown. Therefore, εi is set to ∞ in
order to preclude its reselection in the following phase.
A. Power Sensing
Because the SPS mechanism has been implemented only B. Subchannel Selection for Semi-Persistent Broadcasting
in the primary sub-band, power sensing is relevant solely
for the subchannels in S (1) . Furthermore, power sensing is Once the received power intensities have been measured
performed independently by each vehicle in the last scheduled in S (1) , each vehicle vi will rank the primary subchannels
time window n = Nw . Also, since the value of TSPS is in ascending order. Let such a sorted set be denoted by
randomly drawn by each vehicle from a set of predetermined Sei100 = {s̃i,1 , s̃i,2 , . . . , s̃i,100 }, where s̃i,l ≤ s̃i,l+1 . In a more
values [4], Nw changes at each new scheduling instance general manner, let SeiK = {s̃i,1 , s̃i,2 , . . . , s̃i,K } denote the
on a per-vehicle basis, thus contributing to decorrelating the first K primary subchannels of the sorted set Sei100 . Thus,
subchannel selection among vehicles. During any specific time the subchannel selection process consists on each vehicle vi
window n (for n = 1, 2, . . . , Nw ), a vehicle vi is persistently randomly choosing one subchannel from SeiK for its own SPS
transmitting a CAM message of size MCAM bytes on a de- transmission. Notice that when K = 1, it yields a greedy
termined primary subchannel Siprim = {s(1,k̃1 ) }. Furthermore, scheme, where the subchannel with lowest power is selected.
in the auxiliary sub-bands, vi randomly retransmits replicas When K = 100, the selection becomes purely random. In the
on the subchannels Siaux = {s(2,k̃2 ) , s(3,k̃3 ) , . . . , s(F,k̃F ) }, for former case, several vehicles experiencing similar subchannel
k̃f ∈ {1, 2, . . . , 100}. Due to half-duplex PHY assumption, conditions may unknowingly select the same resources and
vehicle vi will be able to receive signals and sense power broadcast concurrently. Thus, leading to an increased amount
intensities only when not transmitting. For instance, if vehicle of collisions. In the latter case, the rate of messages colliding
˜
vi is transmitting a replica on subchannel s(f ,k̃) for f˜ 6= 1, might diminish but—on the downside—subchannels with high
the received power on the corresponding primary subchannel interference may be selected. In both cases, extreme values of
s(1,k̃) will be unknown. As a result, there will be at most F K will lead to PRR degradation. In this work, K remains uni-
primary subchannels where power sensing will not be feasible. form for all the vehicles. Nevertheless, K plays an important
Based on the foregoing, the primary SPS subchannel for the role as it influences both the amount of colliding messages
forthcoming scheduling period will be chosen from among and the optimality of the reserved subchannels.

Gt · Gr
 X X

 Ip Pj , if k = {m | Si ∩ {s(1,m) , s(2,m) , . . . , s(F,m) } = ∅}
Xij · P Lij

(1,k)
εi = j={u|vu ∈V (k) } p={f |s(f,k) ∈Sj } (1)

 u6=i
∞, otherwise

 3

After monitoring the received power on all

the subchannels of the primary sub-band, Newly reserved
A SPS subchannel reservation lasts during TSP S ms the next SPS subchannel is selected. SPS subchannel
SPS SPS SPS SPS
transmission in transmission in transmission in transmission in
subchannel s(1,3) subchannel s(1,3) subchannel s(1,3) subchannel s(1,5)
... ... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ... ...
... .. .. .. .. .. ...... . .. .. .. .. .. .. ...... . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. .. ...... . .. .. .. .. .. .. ...... . .. .. ...... .
... . . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . .. . .. . . .. . ..
... ... ... ... ... ...
n=1 n=2 n = Nw n=1
random random random random
retransmission in retransmission in retransmission in retransmission in
subchannel s(2,2) subchannel s(F,100) subchannel s (F,1)
subchannel s(2,7)

Tw = 100 (ms) Tw = 100 (ms) Tw Tw Tw Tw Tw = 100 (ms) Tw = 100 (ms)

TSP S
Reception with Reception w/o Transmission w/o Retransmission Reception / sensing
power sensing power sensing power sensing w/o power sensing unfeasible due to HD

Fig. 2: Proposed scheme with joint SPS scheduling and random retransmissions

C. CAM Retransmissions 1.0

Probability (Pr ≤ Po )
Each vehicle vi will randomly broadcast a retransmission 0.8
in a subchannel s(f,k̃f ) ∈ Siaux at each of the F − 1 auxiliary
sub-bands with the purpose of improving reception reliability. 0.6
0.4
IV. S IMULATIONS
0.2 K = 1/F = 3 K = 50/F = 3
In this section, the influence of parameter K on the K = 10/F = 3 K = 80/F = 3
selectivity of candidate SPS primary subchannels is firstly 0.0 K = 20/F = 3 K = 100/F = 3

evaluated. Subsequently, the impact of retransmissions on PRR 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90
performance is assessed. For the realized experiments, a high Po [picoWatts]
vehicle density region of the TAPAS Cologne database [6] was
chosen, where an average number of 3000 vehicles over 40 Fig. 3: CDF of received power on primary subchannels
seconds was observed. In addition, the relevant parameters for
all the experiments are shown in Table I. perspective, it constitutes an adverse strategy that may impinge
on the system performance. Intuitively, when K is relatively
TABLE I: Simulation parameters small the selection tends to become greedy and therefore
packet collisions are more prone to occur. Conversely, when K
Description Symbol Value Units is large, the randomization improves the decorrelation of sub-
Number of RBs per subchannel - 32 - channel allocation among vehicles—which reduces the amount
Number of sub-bands F 1,2,3 -
Number of subchannels per sub-band - 100 -
of collision occurrences. Nevertheless, due to stochastic se-
Subchannel selectivity index K 1-100 - lection and low selectivity, subchannels with high interference
CAM message rate ∆CAM 10 Hz
CAM size MCAM 200 bytes
might be reserved provoking severe PRR degradation. Several
MCS - 6 - simulations were conducted in order to find a suitable value
Transmit power PT 23 dBm
Effective coded throughput (24 CRC bits) ρ 0.916 bps/Hz
of K capable of providing a balanced trade-off between the
Throughput loss coefficient [7] λ 0.6 - amount of generated collisions and the optimality of candidate
SINR threshold γT 2.75 dB
Distance between Tx and Rx Dx 50-300 m
subchannels. Thus, it was discovered that values between 20
Scheduling period [4] TSPS 0.5-1.5 s and 35 are capable of providing superior PRR performance.
Sensitivity threshold (per subchannel) - -103.4 dBm
Antenna gain Gt , Gr 3 dB
Shadowing standard deviation Xσ 7 dB B. Scenario II: Impact of retransmissions on PRR
Shadowing correlation distance - 10 m
Considering K = 30, in this scenario the proposed scheme
with a single primary sub-band (F = 1) is contrasted against
A. Scenario I: Impact of K on PRR the cases where one (F = 2) and two (F = 3) auxiliary sub-
Fig. 3 portrays how the cumulative distribution function bands are utilized. Fig. 4 illustrates these three cases for differ-
(CDF) of the received power Pr on the primary subchannels ent awareness distances Dx and compares them on the basis of
changes with K. We have assumed that F = 3 and therefore two PRR variants; namely P RRraw and P RRservice . The for-
both co-channel interference (CCI) and in-band emissions mer variant computes the PRR as if every CAM message (i.e.
were considered. Although Fig. 3 may suggest that choosing nominal transmissions and retransmissions) were independent.
a small value of K is more appropriate from a single vehicle When F = {2, 3}, message replicas in auxiliary sub-bands
 4

(f,k)
| p − f + 1 | of the vector I = [1 10−3 10−4 ]. Thus, γij is
1.0
compared against a threshold γT = 10 · log10 (2ρ/λ − 1) [7],
Packet Reception (PRR)

raw service which is derived from the parameters in Table I. It is assumed

0.9
rando
m that a message can be correctly decoded if its SINR is larger
0.8 greed
y than the mentioned threshold.
0.7 Considering the P RRservice metric and Dx = 300, it was
observed that when F = 1, the amount of undecodable packets
K = 30, F = 3 K = 30, F = 3
0.6 K = 30, F = 2 K = 30, F = 2 due to excessive CCI was 26.9%. Approximately 6.9% of
K = 30, F = 1 K = 30, F = 1
K = 1, F = 1 K = 100, F = 1 the packets was lost owing to propagation conditions. When
0.5 F = 2 and F = 3, the effective amount of packets not
50 100 150 200 250 300
Dx [meters]
recovered due two severe CCI and IBE was 17.1% and 12.2%,
respectively. This reveals that the probability of a message
Fig. 4: PRR for different distances between vehicles failing successively due to CCI decreases as the number of
retransmissions is increased. And since replicas take place in
take place blindly and therefore the chosen subchannels might the auxiliary sub-bands, only IBE increases but CCI in the
exhibit high CCI; thus impinging on P RRraw performance. primary sub-band is not worsened. A small component of lost
Conversely, when F = 1 every transmitted message will likely packets was due to the half-duplex limitation. For instance,
occur on pre-selected high-quality primary subchannels. As a the amount of missed packets for F = 1 was 0.4% whereas
result, the performance of P RRraw will be higher when F = 1 for F = 2 and F = 3 the numbers decrease to 0.0138% and
than in the cases where F 6= 1. On the other hand, P RRservice 0.0006%, respectively.
does take into account that CAM messages in the auxiliary
sub-bands are replicas. Therefore, if at least one of the F V. C ONCLUSIONS
transmitted messages is recovered correctly the PRR can be
In this work we proposed a semi-persistent scheduling
leveraged. As a consequence, P RRservice exhibits enhanced
scheme endowed with multiple sub-bands for improving recep-
performance over P RRraw .
tion reliability. The described scheme was tested in a scenario
Notice that as more auxiliary sub-bands are utilized, the with high vehicle density and we could conclude that sensing-
performance of P RRservice is boosted. The advantage of based scheduling can provide superior performance over other
broadcasting an additional re-transmission (i.e. F = 2) is more simplistic strategies such as random selection. However,
noticeable since a gain of 7% was obtained over the simpler the former can only be guaranteed when the subchannel
setting for Dx = 300. Furthermore, the additional gain when selectivity index is properly devised. Due to implementation
using F = 3 is 2% if compared to F = 2. The reason for of the SPS mechanism, it is feasible to predict and infer future
this modest improvement is the presence of in-band emissions usage patterns from neighboring vehicles and thus reduce the
that may leak unwanted power onto adjacent subchannels. This amount of collisions. Finally, we could corroborate that blind
phenomenon was partly mitigated for the case F = 2 by random retransmissions on the auxiliary sub-bands have the
only utilizing the first and third sub-bands. For the sake of potential to boost PRR performance as the amount of effective
comparison, Fig. 4 also contrasts the following three cases: collisions and half-duplex impairments tend to reduce.
(i) K = 30/F = 1, (ii) K = 100/F = 1 (random SPS) and
(iii) K = 1/F = 1 (greedy SPS). Based on the foregoing, it is
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