5G technologies will allow more efficient collection of telemetry data and discover completely new features for vehicles that can improve road safety and develop the field of unmanned vehicles. There is a potential in V2X systems (data exchange system between vehicles, road infrastructure elements and other traffic participants), for which 5G NR communication will be used. This will significantly increase the level of safety for drivers, passengers and pedestrians, reduce fuel consumption and travel time.
In March this year, the 3G standardization organization 5GPP approved the introduction of the first C-V5X specifications with support for 16G NR into the next version of the global 2G NR standard (Release 5). We believe this version will be adopted in the first half of 2020. The combination of this technology and support for eMBB (Mobile Ultra Broadband), which was specified in 3GPP Release 15, will be the first step towards using 5G NR to create smart cars based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon Automotive Platform.
We are not waiting for the global rollout of 5G networks to enable direct communication between vehicles using cellular technology. Back in 3GPP Release 14, V2X technologies were described that allow cars to exchange basic information with other road users and, for example, traffic lights, at certain intervals. Their capabilities have been demonstrated during many tests using our C-V2X chip, Qualcomm 9150. Direct communication using C-V2X technologies allows the machine to "see" its surroundings even in situations where other objects are not in line of sight, for example, on blind intersections or in bad weather. At the same time, new technologies complement and expand the capabilities brought by other passive sensors, such as radar, LIDAR and camera systems, which have limitations in range and visibility.
3GPP Release 16 and standardization of C-V2X with 5G NR support will take these capabilities to a whole new level and allow vehicles to receive and send much more information, such as more detailed sensor data and information about the βintentionsβ of road users, about road infrastructure and the movement of pedestrians. Moreover, the exchange of data on "intentions" will help to plan the route of the car more efficiently, which is important for the development of unmanned vehicles in the future. C-V2X will evolve from a technology that in Release 14 served primarily as a means of improving basic road safety to a direct interaction tool between road users that will help improve traffic safety and traffic awareness, as well as reduce fuel and time costs in road.
Taking full advantage of C-V2X and 5G NR
2G NR-based C-V5X solutions take advantage of the innovative capabilities that have emerged with 4G and 5G networks. The first version of 5G networks, which will start rolling out this spring and was standardized in 3GPP Release 15, introduced a scalable channel spacing, which is also used for C-V2X. One example of its application is the ability to change the density of the reference signal depending on the speed of the vehicle. According to our estimates, the spectral efficiency at high speeds in this case will increase by 3,5 times, which is extremely important for new scenarios for using C-V2X, for example, for the interchange between cars and road infrastructure elements of large amounts of data from sensors.
2G NR implementations of C-V5X offer several major radio layer enhancements that are unique to 5G NR. In Release 16, for the first time, a "side" link will be added to the 5G standard - a direct data exchange channel for V2X systems. This technology will serve as the basis for developing future 5G NR solutions in smartphones and other areas such as public safety. The basis for its creation was the development of Qualcomm Technologies for LTE Direct, which in fact led to the appearance of C-V3X technologies in 14GPP Release 2. Also, the technologies described in Release 14 will allow older C-V2X enabled vehicles to communicate on the road even with the latest models that use both versions of C-V2X (from Release 14 and Release 16 with 5G NR support).
A new paradigm for vehicle-to-vehicle communication
In the modern paradigm of data exchange using mobile networks, devices change signal transmission parameters, such as its modulation and coding, depending on the signal quality of base stations. With C-V2X, the task is complicated by the fact that we are talking about constantly moving vehicles, and not about stationary base stations. In this case, signal quality alone is not enough to understand which vehicles are suitable for data exchange in each specific case. Imagine there is a car at an intersection around the corner. Its signal level is weak, but the car itself is close enough, that is, it is part of the environment that is important for our car. Therefore, both vehicles in this case must be able to receive complete information from the sensors, regardless of whether they are in line of sight to each other.
And this, in turn, means that a new paradigm is needed, which will take into account not only the signal level, but also the distance between objects. The very approach to the development of 5G networks because of this differs from how networks of previous generations were built. In particular, at the βlowerβ layers of 5G NR (physical and MAC layers), there is a need for distance estimation. For example, vehicles will send acknowledgments, such as automatic retransmission requests such as ACK/NAK, only if they are within a certain distance from the transmitter and only if the transmitted information is useful to that vehicle. This approach will also help to cope with the problem of the "hidden node" in the form of the car described above with a weak signal level, which is located around the corner. In general, thanks to it, the reliability of information transmission for all vehicles is increased and a large system bandwidth is provided, since network resources are no longer spent on the transmission of "useless" for some road users.
C-V2X powered by 5G NR is not only a data technology
The decision to include the C-V2X specification with 5G NR support in 3GPP Release 16 will be an important step in the standardization of modern data transmission technologies that meet the requirements of the automotive industry for new vehicles, including unmanned vehicles. In addition to data transfer methods, we are also researching and standardizing higher level protocols and message transfer methods in regional standards such as SAE, ETSI ITS and C-ITS. These standardized messages will allow vehicles from different manufacturers to take full advantage of the new C-V2X technologies. Like C-V2X described in 3GPP Release 14, 2G NR-enabled C-V5X solutions will primarily use the 5,9 GHz band, which is dedicated to vehicles in many countries around the world, such as the US, Europe, and China. In this case, the new version of C-V2X will use other channels in this range.
Source: habr.com