The Future of Mobility: 5G and Network APIs Enabling Remote-Driven and Autonomous Vehicles

In the rapidly evolving landscape of automotive technology, remote-driven and autonomous vehicles are poised to revolutionize transportation. At the heart of this transformation lies 5G connectivity, providing robust, low-latency communication essential for these advanced mobility solutions. 5G technology is equipped with advanced capabilities that are key enablers for applications such as remote-driven vehicles, with Network APIs bringing programmability and control over these capabilities.

Let's explore this exciting frontier using an 'outside-in' approach by understanding the domain use cases, connectivity requirements, challenges, and how 5G technologies along with Network APIs can help solve them.

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Remote-driving use cases and applications

Tele driven cars and vehicles have several emerging use cases:?

1. Ride-hailing and taxi services: Tele driven vehicles can provide door-to-door transportation services without an on-board driver.?

2. Remote valet parking: Drivers can leave their vehicles at designated spots, and teleoperators park them remotely.?

3. Rental car delivery: Tele driven EVs can be remotely driven to customers' locations for pickup and returned after use.?

4. Traffic navigation: Teleoperators can drive vehicles through congested areas or complex traffic situations.?

5. Vehicle relocation: Cars can be transferred between locations or users without the need for on-site drivers.?

6. Emergency response: Remote operators can take control of autonomous vehicles in unexpected or unsafe situations ?

7. Last-mile delivery: Businesses can use teleoperated vehicles for efficient goods delivery.

8. Intralogistics: Remote-controlled trucks can be used for fixed routes in industrial settings, such as moving cargo from ships to warehouses.?

9. Car-sharing systems: Tele driven vehicles can be easily redistributed within car-sharing fleets.?

10. Assistance for autonomous vehicles: Teleoperators can provide support when self-driving systems encounter situations they cannot resolve independently.?Regulators may require autonomous vehicles to have the capability of being operated remotely in case of any eventualities.

These use cases leverage tele driving technology to enhance mobility services, improve efficiency, and provide a bridge towards full autonomy in various transportation scenarios.?

Critical Traffic Types

Remote-driven vehicles exchange various types of data traffic with command centers and road infrastructure, each requiring specific levels of service from the communications network. These data types include:

High Priority (99.999% uptime, 50-100ms latency, minimal packet loss)

1. Real-time sensor data: Vehicles continuously transmit data from various sensors to the control center, enabling real-time processing and decision-making.
2. Control commands: The control center sends precise driving instructions and path guidance to vehicles, ensuring safe and efficient operation.
3. Safety-critical messages: Emergency notifications and collision avoidance data are rapidly exchanged between vehicles and the control center, prioritizing passenger safety.

High Bandwidth, Low Latency

4. Video feeds: High-bandwidth video streams from vehicle cameras are sent to the control center, providing critical visual input for remote drivers. Uplink feeds require high reliability, throughput, and low latency, while downlink voice/video for conversations may have lower priority.

Medium Priority

5. Traffic and infrastructure data: Vehicles exchange information about road conditions, traffic signals, and other infrastructure elements with the control center, enhancing situational awareness.

6. Vehicle telemetry: Continuous transmission of vehicle status information, including speed, location, and system health, to the control center for monitoring and analysis.

7. Geofencing information: The control center sends geographic limits and associated rules to vehicles, ensuring compliance with operational boundaries.

High Security (99.99% uptime)

8. Authentication and access control data: Secure exchange of information for verifying and managing vehicle access, requiring the highest level of encryption, protection, and robust authentication methods.

Non-Critical, High Throughput

9. Training of AI Models: Transfer of traffic scenarios and video feeds to edge servers or data centers for AI model training, requiring high throughput but may not need real-time processing.

Scheduled, High Bandwidth

10. Software updates: Over-the-air (OTA) updates sent from the control center to vehicles, requiring scheduled downtime and sufficient bandwidth for large file transfers.

11. Diagnostic information: Vehicles send detailed performance and maintenance data to the control center for monitoring and analysis.

Optional, QoS-Dependent

12. Infotainment: Information and entertainment data traffic for vehicle users, requiring specific QoS based on use cases but not affecting critical communication paths.

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5G Capabilities

5G introduces several key functionalities that fulfill the requirements of various traffic types for remote-driven vehicles:

1. Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC): Enables near-instantaneous data transmission with latencies as low as 1 millisecond, crucial for real-time control commands and safety-critical messages.

2. Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB): Provides high-speed data transmission, supporting high-quality video streaming and large amounts of sensor data transfer.

3. Network Slicing: Creates dedicated virtual networks for different services, ensuring reliable connectivity for essential vehicle functions and prioritizing critical traffic.

4. Massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC): Supports numerous connected devices, facilitating efficient communication for vehicle telemetry and IoT sensors.

5. Beamforming: Enhances signal strength and throughput, improving coverage and capacity for consistent connectivity in various environments.

6. Edge Computing: Reduces latency by processing data closer to the source, enabling faster decision-making for autonomous and remote-driven vehicles.

7. Core Network Slicing: Enables priority service provisioning for critical vehicle control and safety applications.

8. Advanced Radio Access Technologies: Improves overall network performance, including coverage, capacity, and spectral efficiency.

9. Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communication: Enables sharing of real-time information with other vehicles, road users, and infrastructure for enhanced safety and traffic efficiency.

10. UE Policy – UE Routing and Selection Policy (URSP): Allows network and applications to define data traffic routing policies on the User Equipment, optimizing network resource efficiency and ensuring required data paths with specific QoS.

These 5G capabilities, combined with Network APIs, provide the necessary infrastructure for efficient and safe operation of remote-driven and autonomous vehicles.

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5G with Network APIs – A game changer

While 5G capabilities enable remote driving operations, their full potential is realized through real-time programmability, control, and insights provided by Network APIs. These APIs serve as a secure bridge between control center applications and the various components and capabilities of wireless network infrastructure. Several API capabilities significantly enhance remote-driving operations, such as:?

1.????? Quality on Demand API enables configuring specific quality of service (QoS) parameters in 5G networks for individual data traffic flows. Tele-driving involves multiple data types flowing between the vehicle, control center, and internet, each with varying requirements and criticality. This dynamic QoS control allows for differentiated service levels on-demand, ensuring efficient network resource utilization while meeting the diverse needs of tele-driving applications.?

2.????? Traffic Routing APIs enable the routing of low-latency data to the nearest edge site, facilitating efficient processing and minimizing round-trip delays for real-time decision-making. These APIs also support on-demand resource allocation and application instantiation at edge sites, further enhancing the responsiveness and efficiency of tele-driving systems.?

3.????? Location and Device Status APIs provide network-assisted location and connectivity insights. This network-assisted location data serves as a crucial secondary reference when GPS-based positioning is unavailable or compromised, ensuring continuous and accurate vehicle tracking for tele-driving operations.?

4.????? Network Connectivity Insights APIs offer analytics on connectivity levels along travel paths and potential network congestion. This predictive information about network connectivity enables proactive decision-making and contingency planning, enhancing the reliability and safety of tele-driving operations.?

5.????? Background Data Transfer APIs facilitate large data transfers during periods of low network traffic. This capability enables efficient use of network resources and cost savings for substantial data transfers, such as over-the-air firmware updates, large diagnostic files, or non-real-time video transfers, without impacting critical tele-driving functions.?

6.????? Sponsored Connectivity APIs allow for assigning different charging sponsors to various types of traffic flowing through the same network connection. For tele-driven vehicles offering infotainment services, this API enables precise billing for specific data consumption to passengers or other sponsors, facilitating the integration of third-party or OTT applications.?

7.????? Network Slice Operations APIs enable real-time deployment, configuration, and optimization of network slices over mobile networks. This dynamic approach allows for efficient use of network resources based on traffic demand and congestion situations, replacing static resource allocation with a more flexible and responsive system for tele-driving applications.?

8.????? UE Policy provisioning APIs, including URSP and V2X Policy, allow for real-time configuration of user equipment policies in the network. This capability is crucial for updating V2X policies based on vehicle location or traffic conditions. Additionally, UE Routing and Selection Policy (URSP) configurations can optimize the routing of various data traffic from the vehicle, effectively managing load distribution across different network routes composed of slices, APNs, and connection types.?

9.????? Network-based Authentication and KYC API for secure access to the vehicle.

3GPP Releases 17 and 18 standards have introduced additional functionalities and capability exposure Network APIs specifically addressing the requirements of remote-driven and autonomous vehicles. Building on these advancements, the CAMARA Project is developing a layer of 'service APIs' that simplify access to 3GPP Network APIs. This abstraction layer aims to streamline integration by hiding network complexities, making it easier for developers to leverage these powerful capabilities in their autonomous vehicle applications.?With initiatives like GSMA Open Gateway these standardized APIs will be ubiquitously available across the mobile carriers.

As these technologies continue to mature, we can expect to see significant advancements in urban mobility, logistics, and transportation safety. The synergy between 5G connectivity and Network APIs for tele-driven and autonomous vehicle technology promises to reshape our cities and how we move within them. Companies like Vay Waymo halo.car Cruise Tesla Mobileye Einride Ottopia Phantom Auto 日产 Zoox NVIDIA DRIVE are bringing this revolution.

Spry Fox Network is uniquely positioned to deliver end-to-end solutions for remote-driven and autonomous vehicles through its expertise in Network APIs. With a deep understanding of 5G capabilities and advanced API offerings, Spry Fox Network can provide seamless integration of critical Network APIs and 5G capabilities, custom solutions with advanced security measures. Spry Fox Network can help automotive companies and teleoperators create, rapidly deploy and scale secure, high-performance solutions, for remote driving and autonomous vehicles to address connectivity challenges.

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Jignesh Sorathia

Co-Founder | Head of Networks& Solutions

www.spryfoxnetworks.com