The car is already more than a simple means of passenger transport: advanced infotainment systems help with communication, real-time orientation, passenger entertainment and surveillance, and increasingly advanced driving assistance systems provide safety. Networked vehicles will soon be able to communicate not only with the driver but also with each other and the smart road network. However, this requires a sufficiently fast and stable communication platform. Reliable 5G network everywhere
Last year there were 250 million vehicles on the world’s road network that were connected to a communication network, and from 2025 onwards, the period may come when all new cars sold will be capable of wireless communication. . With this, the era of self-driving vehicles, which has only been envisioned in sci-fi for a few decades, can come into tangible proximity. But in the meantime, there is a lot of work to be done by car manufacturers, transport infrastructure owners and, in particular, companies operating wireless networks, because without stable and extensive 5G coverage, all this will not be possible.
Self-driving test cars can race in Zalaegerszeg
The global penetration of truly “autonomous” vehicles requires a wide range of industry alliances to create a network effect, just as at the dawn of motoring in the twentieth century. at the beginning of the century. At that time, it became necessary to further develop the road network so that more and more vehicles could travel on the roads faster and at the same time as safely as possible.
Such a collaboration began in Hungary at the ZalaZONE automotive test track in Zalaegerszeg, where many industry players examines how self-driving cars can communicate with each other and their environment through a central infrastructure. On the test track, Ericsson built a 5G test network in 2019 and, for the first time in Hungary, demonstrated maneuvers with self-driving vehicles communicating on a 5G network with its partners in an environment that simulates real conditions. Ericsson is also involved in other similar projects: building a 5G test network in Södertälje, Sweden, together with Scania, a bus and truck manufacturer in Sweden, to develop remote vehicle control, and recently took part in a dedicated test track near Barcelona to develop a dedicated 5G network
One car, one hour, 4000 gigabytes of data
The two most important features of the next generation network – higher data capacity and low latency – make the 5G infrastructure suitable for networked connection. a multitude of vehicles should be able to send and receive a significantly larger amount of data in real time than before, on the basis of which the driver – be it a blood-blood person or an artificial intelligence – can make a good decision. With the support of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, more advanced services for driving assistance, better vehicle performance, traffic monitoring and energy efficiency are evolving rapidly. Analysts predict that a single self-driving car will generate 4,000 gigabytes of data in a single hour.
Technology allows roadside sensors or traffic control systems to send signals to vehicles, such as an accident or the load of a traffic light, immediately the driver can be informed and a new, faster route can be chosen. With the spread of the permanent road-vehicle communication connection, the dynamics of traffic may change fundamentally, as the automatic optimization of the route and speed can greatly reduce the traffic load in large cities and the chances of traffic jams. Not only can fewer congestions lead to less pollution, but also to economic benefits, as we have more time for productive activities.
On 5G networks, seamless continuity of service can be guaranteed across borders – cross-border transfers are essential to ensure that to ensure a continuous driving experience between national networks when connected and autonomous vehicles move from one country to another
Can university research lead a breakthrough in route optimization?
Another advantage of 5G networks, which is also necessary for “self-driving” driving, is that the networks can instantly upload to a central cloud information recorded by different sensors about cars equipped with some level of self-driving capability. In the cloud, “centralized” logic can serve tens of thousands of cars.
Researchers at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), in partnership with Ericsson and Magyar Telekom, are exploring the potential. network, which was launched by the partners at the end of last year. As part of the project, Ericsson has built a complete 5G test network, which will operate both indoors and outdoors in the BME I building, as well as in the research laboratory of Ericsson’s R&D center. You can also try out applications, use cases, and features on the resulting network that are not yet available on a live network. Testing of software under development can thus be started at an early stage, which significantly speeds up the time-to-market of an application.
Update unnoticed
In addition to the above, a fast wireless connection allows the introduction and application of many other solutions for the convenience of the driver. In this way, software running on cars’ on-board computers, among other things, can be updated quickly, even in a few minutes, without being noticed, which means that this process can no longer be carried out only during periodic service every few years.
More recently updated HD maps may also contain outdated information. In such cases, cars will also send real-time updates to the Mobile Edge Cloud, allowing cars behind them to receive relevant updates from the cloud.
If research and network development are at this pace , the current picture of transport may fundamentally change in a few years. It may be enough for our smart cars to announce an address soon, and they will take you to your destination on the optimal, fastest and safest route. Or they are just helping a firefighter, ambulance, get to an accident faster. This requires that, in addition to automotive and technological developments, the national and international deployment of 5G networks and the decisions required for this follow the pace of technological developments.
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