5G should accelerate autonomous communication

The emergence of 5G is expected to bring forth the exploration of new horizons to connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), as well as to vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication.

Erik Varney, managing director of telematics for industrial IoT and automotive at Verizon Business, says that convergence is the major trend that’s occurring within the new generation of vehicles – especially electric and autonomous. He said: “With the new generation of mobile technology, 5G, people might ask, when are we going to see the real adoption of autonomous vehicles, and when are we going to see those capabilities come to the regular consumer?”

“Most autonomous vehicles and technology today cost a lot of money and aren’t really worth it for the average consumer. Soon, though, I expect to see a trend toward more availability and eventual ubiquity of connectivity vehicle technology.” He adds: “Connectivity speeds are upshifting by a factor of 10, and you start to think about what you can do with that kind of bandwidth and throughput – machine learning, for instance, and things really make a big difference with autonomous driving and remote driving for that matter, that can really move the needle when it comes to autonomous technology.” So, he not only sees the next generation of solutions coming to life but also predicts “you’re going to see some really interesting things take place with the advent of these newer technologies, LiDAR and others, and bringing them down to a more reproducible range when it comes to cost”.

Inspiring innovation

Lower costs in Varney’s opinion “should lead to some technologies and capabilities that we never would’ve seen in a vehicle 10 years ago now start to become commonplace”. Part of this equation is the software-defined vehicle, allowing what he describes as the core of the vehicle – it’s software – to be upgraded in the same way people upgrade their smartphones. He adds an observation that at this year’s Super Bowl at which “every car commercial that was during the big game itself seemed to be either an electric vehicle or an autonomous vehicle”. The key point to this is that they all need connectivity and so they are going to need the capabilities that the mobile networks will provide.

Mark Doughty, president and CEO of PrePass Safety Alliance, then gives his opinion about how 5G will bring new horizons to CAVs and V2X communications: “5G and C-V2X will bring new opportunities for commercial and passenger vehicles; however, owing to the bifurcation of the 5.9 GHz Safety Spectrum, the opportunities will be limited.  It appears that traffic management, including variable speed control on highways will help to alleviate congestion. Also, V2X warnings can signal vehicles long before they reach a road hazard, to reduce speed to avoid collisions with other vehicles or pedestrians.”

So, with V2X in mind, why will 5G lead to the development of a new generation of “smart automobiles”? Doughty says 5G is up to 100 times faster than 4G and so it should help to alleviate speed and connectivity issues caused by network latency. However concerns over latency still remain, he believes, making some automakers hesitant and counters: “There are approximately 275 million vehicles on the road today in the United States. As we look to the long-term future of those vehicles eventually becoming “smart automobiles,” 5G for the first time begins to offer the bandwidth and speed necessary to support the development of future technologies.”

To read the complete article, visit TU-Automotive.