This site may earn chapter commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

What technology is both fast plenty and inexpensive enough for cars to warn each other about highway atmospheric condition and hazards? That'south the purpose of a connected car test after this twelvemonth in San Diego, involving a one-half-dozen big-time tech players and C-V2X, or cellular vehicle-to-everything communications. AT&T, Ford, Nokia, Qualcomm Technologies and others will test, amidst other things, how much C-V2X tin can practise directly communicating with vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, and roadside infrastructure such as traffic signs or construction zones.

Who'due south Doing What, Where, and Why

Fifty-fifty without much authorities involvement, this tale is crammed with buzzwords (synergies, facilitators) and acronyms upwards the wazoo. We'll translate as nosotros proceed, and continue it simple. This is a exam using three things:

  • Ford cars. Ford has been tranquillity lately on autonomous driving, but it's out front hither;
  • AT&T cellular data service. AT&T has much of the machine telematics market now, not Verizon;
  • Nokia computing technology using the emerging Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X chipset, which integrates communications that are both direct (to pedestrians, other cars) and network-based.

This all makes it V2I (vehicle-to-infrastructure), V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle), and V2P (vehicle-to-pedestrian, or cyclist).

The Qualcomm chipset will exist available in sample quantities to suppliers and automakers in in 2022, the company said. Information technology could be in 2022 model cars, meaning every bit fiddling as two years from now.

Testing will take identify at the San Diego Regional Proving Ground (SANDAG) working with ITS (intelligent transportation solutions) provider McCain, Inc. SANDAG one of 10 automatic vehicle proving grounds in the Us. C-V2X is defined as an extension of global cellular standards by the 3GPP, or Tertiary Generation Partnership Project.

Testing will back up C-V2X in the 5.9 GHz ITS (intelligent transportation solutions) spectrum, including do-not-pass warnings, intersection movement assist, and left-turn assist. The AT&T cellular network and Nokia deject infrastructure would provide real-time map updates and event notifications, such as a big sports event letting out or a bridge closure.

Use cases for C-V2X (cellular – vehicle-to-everything) (Source: Qualcomm)

Complementary or Competitive?

According to Qualcomm, "[C-V2X is] complementary to other Advanced Commuter Assistance Systems (ADAS) sensors, such as cameras, radar, and LIDAR […] C-V2X technology is designed to support 360-degree non-line-of-sight awareness, and is designed to extend a vehicle's power to see, hear, and understand the surroundings downwards the road, at blind intersections, or in bad conditions weather."

In other words, the car(s) alee of you will report on bug, so you can slow downward or take other measures. The arrangement volition also have value for democratic cars, showing them what's inverse in real-fourth dimension compared with the on-board maps they have.

Wireless communications among cars will save lives. Proponents say it could be four-fifths of those accidents that don't involve dumb drivers, say x,000 to 15,000 out of the 32,000 motor vehicle accidents a year. The Qualcomm-AT&T-Ford et al brotherhood is request regulatory bodies to keep an open mind (i.east., don't shut them out) while considering what kinds of dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) radio systems cars would demand.

The testing will show the residuum of the manufacture what C-V2X offers, and how well it deals with latency (lag) by prioritizing traffic messages on the network. The Qualcomm consortium says that past 2022, the majority of vehicles will have embedded cellular hardware and connectivity.