C-V2X: The future of 5G and smart transportation Webinar (a review and commentary)
I wrote this originally as a Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/tsirtsisg/status/1275327699935002625?s=20
I repost it here for slightly formatted/edited for this medium.
1/ Last night I watched and listened to this C-V2X webinar by two good colleagues of mine Dino Flore and Jim Misener.
This is a subject close to my heart as I used to run the R&D projects that created the fundamental technology behind it before the quest of launching 5G in Europe took me away from it.
I suggest you listen to the whole thing (link below) but here are my impressions, highlights, and some commentary on parts of the material.
https://mobex.io/webinars/c-v2x-the-future-of-5g-and-smart-transportation/
2/You have probably heard before that 5G is growing must faster than 4G ever did (it is very true!)…
3/… but 5G is also being adopted on vehicles much faster than LTE also, as telematics and infotainment have become a lot more common and car manufacturers are eager to offer advanced services
4/ The car is a platform for increasing number of technologies and services… C-V2X is one of them. If you consider all the things that we want to fit in a phone and cant because of the form factor, the car is a massive playground in comparison(!), although space is more at a premium tan you might imagine!.
5/ C-V2X is going to become key part of smart transportation system which will use many technologies that are not only about safety but also about transport network efficiency
6/ Cars will cooperated with each other but also with cameras and other sensors on the side of the road
7/ Short range critical communications will happen direct between cars, traffic lights, and pedestrians, while over the network communications will cover longer range, and less time-critical communications
8/ C-V2X was designed from scratch for high performance serving critical safety use cases. It will also be more cost effective over time as it can be integrated with other cellular needs and leverage its 5G ecosystem
9/ First ever C-V2X trial was in Germany under CONVEX program. I was still running the C-V2X program for Qualcomm at that time… so I will claim this one as my fault ??
10/ C-V2X trials and pilots expanded across the US, Europe, and Asia during 2018 and 2019, and into 2020. Some of them where very large scale
11/ Then came 2 of the most important slides in my view.
This one below, shows productized Road Side Units (RSUs) and On-Board Units (OBUs), but also modules which can be used by device manufacturers to deliver products quickly based on already tested and certified implementations.
Existence of C-V2X products and choice of vendors and form factors is very important!
12/…and this ecosystem roadmap shows not only stand-alone C-V2X implementation, but also Dual mode C-V2X+G5 implementation allowing some to de-risk their plans. Even more importantly maybe we see that AI+C-V2X implementations are coming. AI is instrumental here if C-V2X is to be incorporated as a sensor into the autonomous system of the car (more on this below)
13/ In the Q&A there were some good questions on Safety functions, digital security, and spectrum related issues. I encourage you to watch/listen to the end. Maybe the most important one was a question on whether and how C-V2X will be incorporated on which autonomy levels (1-5) of cars, busses, and other vehicles. The answer from the speakers, which I agree with, is that C-V2X has a role in all of them!
Let me add that in the end C-V2X is a sensor. In fact, it is the ONLY non-line-of-site sensor that can be on board the car. Cameras, Radars, and Lidars are all line-of-site. C-V2X is the only sensor that can see around the corners in an intersection and ahead of the truck in front of you. This is valuable to any autonomous system.
Overall an excellent webinar by Dino Flore and Jim Misener.
Thank you