Ubiquitous connectivity is an essential prerequisite to achieving a full-scale digital transformation of the automotive sector. Connectivity challenges and how the seamless integration of terrestrial and non-terrestrial network solutions can foster high-capacity global connectivity were at the heart of the Connectivity for the Car of the Future Symposium, hosted by the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA).

Berlin (Germany), 16 May 2022. The 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) and the European Space Agency discussed the crucial role of ubiquitous connectivity and the opportunities for space technologies to offer future solutions for the automotive sector during its “Connectivity for the Car of the Future Symposium.”

Today, over 200 million connected vehicles worldwide are equipped with applications sharing hazard and traffic warnings on the road. The automotive sector is undergoing a significant transformation: from a focus on vehicle performance to a focus on a fully digital, tailor-made digital experience, and customers increasingly expect a fully connected car. Ubiquitous connectivity is an essential prerequisite to achieving a full-scale digital transformation of the automotive sector. Ensuring the network’s reliability can be a challenge, particularly in rural or remote areas that still experience no or poor band coverage, and non-terrestrial networks can have a crucial role in deploying hybrid connectivity solutions for the car of the future.

To explore the connectivity challenges and how space solutions can support the car industry in connected mobility, the 5G Automotive Association organised a Symposium in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). What does the future car look like? Which connectivity and business models are needed to enable? What is the place of space in the mix? These were some of the questions addressed by industry representatives of car manufacturers, connectivity providers, mobile network operators, satellite connectivity providers and decision-makers.

Satellite connectivity can complement terrestrial solutions in white spots and in case of outages and congestion. In this sense, Europe must accelerate the development of assets and capacities in this field to compete globally, provide the appropriate solutions for the automotive sector and fill in any potential gaps. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that all the stakeholders and their respective innovative roadmaps are aligned, as highlighted by Joseph Aschbacher, Director-General of ESA, in his welcome messagefor the event. As such, the car industry will be able to make the most of cutting-edge developments in the connectivity domain.

“We are pleased to collaborate with 5GAA to promote and build the connected car ecosystem of the future. Vehicles are rapidly becoming fully connected devices and drive investments into new-generation connectivity. Satellites and space-based technologies are key assets to complete terrestrial networks, build smart and hybrid systems and offer ubiquitous, secure, and sustainable connectivity. We look forward to continuing this intense exchange with the automotive value chain to join forces and build a truly European connected car architecture,” added Elodie Viau, Director, Telecommunications and Integrated Applications Directorate, ESA.

During the Symposium, car manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers discussed the mobility-related technology innovations, opportunities, requirements, and challenges, highlighting the crucial role of ubiquitous connectivity for the automotive sector and the increasing number of use-cases already developed by the automotive industry for both private and commercial vehicles.

Including non-terrestrial connectivity in the mix will bring many benefits, such as extending high connectivity to rural areas at a comparatively low cost and enabling digital services and autonomous driving applications. However, space solutions need to be integrated with the existing terrestrial solutions, as they will not replace them. In addition, the seamless integration of antennas technology on the car, and the smooth handover between the networks, are just some of the challenges that still need to be addressed. Therefore, speakers pointed out that these solutions need to be included in the 3GPP standardisation system, which is currently the integrational connectivity path, defining the terrestrial connectivity requirements.

Finally, all the stakeholders engaged in a lively discussion to map how the whole ecosystem can work together to address the connectivity challenges and develop targeted R&D, demonstrators and pilots and expand them into mature business models and strategic partnerships. Indeed, to enable cross-border coordination and integration of terrestrial and satellite connectivity solutions, the cooperation and alignment of various players and investments will be essential. In this area, ESA aims to provide the European automotive sector with the necessary support and expertise to maximise its positive social, economic and environmental impact and develop competitive car connectivity solutions.

“Use cases and requirements are already there, and ubiquitous connectivity will enable their full-scale deployment. Satellite solutions can play a crucial role in achieving this,” concluded Johannes Springer, Director General, 5GAA. “It is crucial to ensure the greatest alignment and cooperation between all the stakeholders involved. Let’s continue working together to bring the 3GPP standards to the satellite solutions and seamlessly integrate them with the terrestrial networks to provide solutions for the car of the future.”

Below the presentations showcased during the first session of the event:

Andreas Schaller, V2X Technology Strategy, Robert Bosch Mobility Solutions

Olaf Eckart, Senior Expert Cooperations R&D, Industry Customers, BMW

Jörg Plechinger, Head of Mobile Connectivity Plattform / Car2X,  AUDI AG

Susanne Schulz, Head of Department Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility,  Autobahn GmbH

SwRI is a R&D problem solvers providing independent, premier services to government and industry clients.

The Rohde & Schwarz technology group develops, produces and markets a wide range of electronic capital goods, contributing to a safer and connected world.

Pirelli & C. S.p.A. is a multinational tyre manufacturer based in Milan, Italy and focuses on the consumer production of tyres for cars, motorcycles and bicycles.

Futurwei Technologies is dedicated to pursuing openness in Research & Development (R&D) by embracing Open Innvoation Model.

Cohda Wireless has established itself as the leading supplier of innovative Connected Vehicle solutions that enable vehicles to connect with other vehicles and intelligent infrastructure in ITS, Smart City & Mining infrastructure.

With its Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans and Daimler Mobility divisions, Daimler Group is one of the leading global suppliers of premium and luxury cars and vans.

AT&T Inc. is a holding company. The Company is a provider of telecommunications, media and technology services globally.

The international collaboration of tech leaders and public sector on a live connected car trial will pilot new roaming technology for traffic safety.

March 24^th, 2022 – (Blacksburg, VA) On March 24^th the Commonwealth of Virginia will host a live trial of new driver and pedestrian safety concept that allows near-real-time notification of roadway hazards through 5G and edge technologies. This trial is one of three conducted internationally by a historic public-private collaboration, organized by the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) and eight member companies representing leading technology companies from around the globe. A related European live-trial was conducted in the city of Turin, Italy. The North American live trial will be conducted on the Virginia Smart Road operated by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute in Blacksburg, VA. It is the first of its kind in North America.

“The 5G Automotive Association lives out of cooperation between its members. In this case, eight members led by Intel and Verizon give a perfect example of how we can use connected mobility to increase safety on our roads,” said Maxime Flament, CTO of 5GAA. “5GAA is also global and we are happy that use cases demonstrated here in United States can readily be adapted in any other country supporting 5G and Edge networks.”

5G transmission speeds and so-called “Edge” servers—locally installed, high-powered computers capable of running Artificial Intelligence programs—open the door to smart city technologies like near real-time traffic management and innumerable other business applications. The connected car concept uses this high-speed and Edge computing technology to communicate with car sensors and pedestrian smartphones, via a user-authorized mobile app—about traffic hazards, like accidents and road construction—for Pedestrian and in-vehicle driver safety and efficient navigation.

This live international trial attempts to solve one of the more technical challenges of making the connected car concept a daily reality. The 5G networks underpinning the concept are managed by Communication Service Providers (CoSPs) according to geography, each with different edge solutions that must be able to communicate without interruption of the V2X applications as drivers cross borders. Roaming services—the ability to make a call regardless of the network—is one early success of multi-mobile network operators (MNO). Demonstrating the connected car concept can work in a roaming scenario is the core objective of the live trial and represents the first of any such attempt in the United States.

“Telecom operators will have to play a major role by enabling applications and services for the connected car ecosystem,” says Shamik Mishra, CTO Connectivity, Capgemini Engineering. He further adds: “Capgemini is excited to bring its innovative federated MEC (Multi-Access Edge Computing) platform and applications to this 5GAA trial to demonstrate the true value of intelligent industry, leveraging data in the vehicles and edge-cloud. The trials serve as a stepping-stone for realizing the potential for automakers to provide services to their connected cars from the network.”

The Virginia live trial addresses three objectives:

• Objective 1: Multi-MNO scenario: How can a vehicle, which has radio access to MNO A, use a MEC application, which is operated by MNO B -> Interworking between MNO‘s (by NOT losing the benefits of low latency) 
• Objective 2: Global operational Availability: How can an OEM as the MEC application developer be sure, especially on a global basis, that a MEC application works in the same way if it’s operated by MNO A, or if it’s operated by MNO B
• Objective 3: Multi-MNO with roaming scenario: Where the two operators can seamlessly transfer the V2X service from one operator to the other as the car OEM moves from one geo to the other in a roaming scenario. Typically, when an in-vehicle driver does a cross-border travel that involves two operators.

One of the key benefits of the trial is the value demonstrated by bringing in a large ecosystem to help develop not only the technology but also build the business case and model that will help drive the potential market adoption for 5G and C-V2X to help into the digital transformation of smart cities of the future. To succeed in this endeavor, it will need a village and investment from both public and private sectors to help adopt this new technology to provide a quality of life for all citizens.

The demonstration brings new learnings for various players across the value chain and creates a testbed for trying out new 5G connected car services at the Edge in subsequent phases. The U.S.  Live Trial will take place in Blacksburg, VA, on March 24^th, 2022.

BACKGROUND

In this live trial, Verizon and TELUS are exhibiting the Ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) 5G networking capabilities, such as hosting Capgemini’s ENSCONCE MEC platform, built upon the Intel      Smart Edge Open toolkit, to enable connected car use cases at the edge on Intel Architecture-based EC2 instances on AWS Wavelength. Intel Smart Edge Open (formerly known as OpenNESS) is a royalty-free edge computing software toolkit for building optimized and performant edge platforms.

“Intel is proud to be a leading member of this live trial to build and provision Infrastructure to enhance Connected Vehicle experience in multi-operator scenarios,” said Sameer Sharma, General Manager of Cities & Transportation Business Unit at Intel. “This demonstration shows how cloud service providers and communication service providers can advance road infrastructure deployments at the 5G network edge when powered by Intel technologies. This is just the beginning, as future trial phases will demonstrate additional exciting services”

Capgemini’s ENSCONCE MEC Platform also enables multi-tenancy and multi-MNO MEC federation capabilities based on GSMA Operator Platform requirements and comes with Capgemini V2X Stack built-in support. To realize the Active and Passive Vulnerable Road User (VRU) use cases, the AWS Wavelength EC2 instances are used to demonstrate Virtual-RSU and host V2X applications that are based on the Intel      Xeon      Scalable Processors. Harman International and Capgemini provide the Virtual-RSU and RSE solutions respectively to realize various V2X use cases with location aware and AI inferencing technologies. Harman also offers a 5G enabled OBU that integrates seamlessly with Stellantis/FCA car and hosts V2X applications. American Tower in collaboration with VTTI is providing the test bed infrastructure at the VTTI intersection where the trial for V-DOT will be performed.

“Since joining 5GAA in 2018, we have worked with public and private partners to help define the ecosystem for scalable cellular-based roadside infrastructure to serve the 5G connected vehicle.” Said Ed Knapp, CTO of American Tower. “By deploying C-V2X in combination with roadside sensors processed at shared multi-access edge computing facilities, also known as MEC4auto, American Tower hopes to enable deployments of seamless multi-operator MEC services to support low latency use cases.”

“The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), along with our Virginia Department of Transportation partners, is excited to support the demonstration of the MEC4Auto solution on the Virginia Smart Roads. The connected car concept provides reliable, low latency communications that can enable a variety of transportation safety use cases. This V2X technology takes a big step towards scalable deployment by demonstrating the seamless transfer of V2X services between operators and geographic locations with no change in performance, functionality, and reliability.”  Said Dr. Michael Mollenhauer, Director, Division of Technology Implementation at VTTI.

“The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has a mission to ensure the safe, efficient, and accessible travel of people and goods across the Commonwealth,” explained Amanda Hamm, VDOT’s Connected and Automated Vehicle Program Manager. “To achieve this mission, VDOT supports innovative solutions and partnerships, like this historic trial, to bring the connected vehicle ecosystem to fruition, as this environment could one day save lives by providing actionable, real-time information to all roadway users so that they better navigate our roadways.”

“Making roads safer for drivers and pedestrians is the ultimate goal of developing these next generation technologies,” said Ned Curic, Stellantis Chief Technology Officer. “The Jeep® Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrid is the perfect vehicle for these live tests, equipped with vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies and driver safety alert. With 5GAA, we are working with industry leaders across the globe to help pave the way for autonomous technology to benefit our products and, ultimately, our customers”

“Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength brings AWS compute and storage services to the edge of Verizon’s wireless network minimizing the latency and network hops required to connect from an application hosted on AWS to the end user’s device,” said Jyoti Sharma, Senior Manager of Network Planning at Verizon. “Through our partnership with AWS, we are helping customers unlock the true potential of 5G and edge computing which together will enable innovative applications involving computer vision, augmented and virtual reality, and machine learning.”

Connected mobility is quickly becoming a reality, and thanks to ultra-low latency of 5G and power of edge computing, it will deliver on important safety outcomes for everyone on our roads in a near future,” said Ibrahim Gedeon, Chief Technology Officer, TELUS. “TELUS is proud to offer our world-leading connectivity, alongside this prestigious group of partners, in order to realize this trial and maximize our learning for the future.”

“At HARMAN, we are focused on building connectivity solutions at the intersection of 5G, V2X & Edge Computing that will build more equity on the road for all users,” said Mahsa Nakhjiri, Director, Product Management at HARMAN. “While these technologies can unlock many new use cases and experiences, the most important element of any solution in this space is safety.  As programs such as this one fueled by the collaboration of industry leaders and organizations like 5GAA bring a new degree of safety to users, they will also lead to a higher level of confidence in autonomous vehicles.”

Source: Harbor Research_1.

 

On 2nd March, 5GAA experts and member spokespersons shared their views on how the deployment of C-V2X technologies is turning connected and safe mobility into reality from now and in the next few years, during the conference “Turning Connected and Safe Mobility into Reality” at the Barcelona edition of GSMA’s Mobile World Congress.

The conference, moderated by Freddie Holmes, Special Correspondent at Automotive World, offered an overview of the broad-scale improvements that connected mobility can bring to the global automotive system, starting with a first session on the 5G-V2X deployment landscape in different regions, such as Europe, China, and the US. Speakers underlined the need for increased ecosystem cooperation and cross-border projects to ensure reliable access to 5G networks to all users. The second session focused on the safety aspects and benefits brought by the technology, including protecting vulnerable road users.

The event concluded with an insightful panel discussion on mobility data, with the participation of representatives from the entire ecosystem value chain. Panellists discussed how smart cities and infrastructure could help make data-driven decisions that inform how we pave the path for the future of mobility and the crucial role of data standardisation and reliability and new business models to foster investments.

The event welcomed, in person or through virtual messages, high-level representatives of 5GAA’s member companies Deutsche Telekom, Verizon, China Mobile, Harman, Continental, Telefonica, Qualcomm, BMW, Huawei, Intel , ZTE, Stellantis.

In case you didn’t have the possibility to attend the conference in Barcelona, here you can find some of the insightful materials presented by our members.

Bringing 5G Consumer Experiences to Automotive Industry At Scale
Ramaswamy Iyer, Senior Vice-President and Head of Connectivity SBU, Harman

Vishnu Sundaram, Senior Vice President, Stellantis

 

5G + C-V2X: Pave the way for C-ITS and Auto-Driving
Xu Ling, Standard Director, ZTE

 

China overview
Wai Chen, Chief Scientist, China Mobile

 

Presentations:

The Digital Guardian Angel -A Cellular-assisted VRU protection solution
Frank Foersterling, Head of Government, Liaison & Engagement, Continental

Driving the Smart Mobility Revolution
Leticia Lopez Domingo, Technology Innovation Expert, Telefonica

5G capabilities as a game changer for automotive connectivity
Dennis Nikles, Vice-President IOT, Deutsche Telekom