IWPC: What's going on with V2X?

I attended and presented at #IWPC "Driving the Connected Vehicle Landscape" yesterday. OEM's, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and various of the automotive ecosystem attended, including quite a few PhD's. It was a fantastic learning opportunity technically, and very informative regarding the economic/political drivers surrounding V2X. Listening to the questions and answers, a few things are clear.

• In the US, the DSRC Frequency Band is in jeopardy. The FCC is taking a "Fresh Look" at allowing coexistence between V2X and WiFi. A decision is expected later this year. On a technical level there seems to be consensus we can't have a safety application time-sharing a band when seconds and even fractions of a second matter.
• Network Operators are struggling to understand how they would pay for the cost of infrastructure to support certain aspects of V2X generically, e.g. Road Side Units (RSUs), as well as specific aspects of C-V2X requiring hardware investment (C-V2X incorporates use of the Uu cellular link, which means it uses some of the network bandwidth to accomplish its functions, and also uses cellular connectivity to add new features and operate more efficiently). MNO's are not opposed, but are mindful of these costs.
• Government Regulators in Europe and China have eliminated uncertainty in terms of which standard will be used in their respective regions, (unfortunately it looks as though they did not align). For the US market, the industry would very much benefit from a regulatory decision (DSRC or C-V2X), and certainty regarding the DSRC band's viability. This uncertainty has led to a number of OEM's changing plans until this is resolved.

My topic actually touched on the impacts of coexistence with WiFi, as well as how difficult the automotive environment is from an RF perspective (think Shark-Fin antenna mounted on a really challenging ground-plane). The takeaways were:

• Non Line of Site (NLOS) scenarios and varying angle of arrivals present challenges to the system.
• The adjacent UNII-3 band is already a problem for the low end of the DSRC band, which happens to be where BSM's are assigned. Driving past a coffee shop with hot access points could temporarily reduce packet delivery. This could be especially problematic if the cafe is on a corner with an approaching vehicle NLOS
• There were lots of cool graphics in my presentation, but I can't seem to work out how to add any more.

That's all for now.....