Driving in the Fast Lane: 5G and Autonomous Vehicles

Intelligent transport

One area of 5G’s development that will need to be fully ratified is standards, as Ken Karnofsky, Senior Strategist, Signal Processing Applications, MathWorks explains: “The 5G standard for V2X has not yet been defined. It is currently a study item for the next release of the standard (3GPP Release 16). C-V2X communication, including direct communication between vehicles, is defined in the LTE standard (3GPP Release 14).

Karnofsky continued: “Current development is based on this standard. While it is intended to be forward compatible with 5G, the LTE implementation has higher latency (4ms). This is sufficient for prototype development, but full deployment in applications requiring the lower 1ms latency envisioned for 5G will have to wait until that standard is defined and deployed. Completion of the Release 16 specification is anticipated in December 2019.”

In addition, Patrick Callaghan, Enterprise Architect at Strategic Business Advisor, EMEA for DataStax noted: “Using the traditional refrain of the impatient car passenger: “Are we there yet?” The answer is “No, not yet.” Highlighting the current state of protocols for 5G mobile telephony alone, the pre-standards being developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3PP) for a 5G vehicle-to-anything (V2X) communication system aren’t expected to be complete until the end of this year.

“A fully autonomous vehicle ecosystem would require V2X as a fundamental component, and that encompasses communications systems connecting vehicles to other vehicles, to infrastructure, to the grid, to devices and pedestrians, so we cannot say that we have arrived yet as far as 5G is concerned. However, in the interim, 4.5G connectivity and edge will allow for high automation of vehicles which would enable, for example, driverless valet parking and driverless public transport.”

Callaghan concluded: “Although we are more cognisant of the challenges involved, there’s a recognition that we must focus on data communications that are more robust, incur less delay and are more efficient in coverage and non-coverage situations. However, there is a pan-European ‘corridor’ of 5G highways being deployed from 2021 onwards, and there is an expectation that we will see 5G cars on public roads by 2026 and the ecosystem has to be in place to enable that to happen.”

There is little doubt that autonomous vehicles will become widespread over the next decade. 5G in the short-term will help support new services and products that will aid the driver. Real-time in-car data is likely to be the first tangible real-world application of 5G to transport. Just as 5G will deliver the infrastructure to deliver a smart environment, as this network expands, vehicles will come into its sphere of influence.

NEXT: Driving ahead