Today, many elders use wearables to monitor their health, including the ones who need to be monitored 24/7. Suddenly, one of those devices sends a signal to emergency responders that the user has fallen and can’t call for help. The emergency service sends an ambulance to the fallen person’s home. This “smart” ambulance is equipped with vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, allowing it to connect to, communicate with, and control the infrastructure. The system controls the city’s traffic lights to create a priority corridor for the ambulance on the way to the patient’s home and the hospital.
Additionally, it alerts other vehicles in advance that an ambulance is going to pass near their route, avoiding possible collisions.
For most people, such a system sounds like something futuristic that we will benefit from in a few years. In reality, the technology is already here and in use in several cities all over the world.
Unfortunately, its effectiveness depends critically on the number of vehicles equipped with a compatible system and on the spectrum reserved for those critical communications.
V2V and ADAS Systems
One of the essential uses for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and V2X systems is to enable several advanced driving-assistance systems (ADAS). We are not talking just about fully autonomous vehicles but any form of assistance to the driver, including early warning systems, semi-autonomous driving such as parking and highway cruising, and traffic control and monitoring.
For example, a vehicle can start to slow down on a road if the system receives a signal from the infrastructure of traffic congestion, an accident, or a roadblock ahead.
Conversely, a driverless vehicle can detect other vehicles at an intersection, such as a four-way stop, and determine when it has the right of way.
Truck Platooning
One of the early applications for V2V and V2X systems is truck platooning. The European Union has invested in several multinational programs to help develop a secure, intraoperative system for trucks to travel together, help reduce fuel consumption, and let drivers rest while following the other vehicles.
According to the EU-funded Conpanion Project, when enabled, truck platooning can save over 1 billion liters of fuel a year in the European Union alone.
The leading technology partner in the project is NXP Semiconductors. The company’s RoadLINK platooning system uses the IEEE 802.11p (DSRC) Wi-Fi standard and NXP’s radar technology to enable communication, with latencies as low as 135 ms between trucks, and take the necessary actions in response to the lead truck.
Wi-Fi vs. C-V2X
As mentioned above, for those systems to communicate effectively, both the infrastructure and vehicles need to be connected to compatible and shared networks.
When talking about V2V and V2X technologies, we need to mention the concept of dedicated short-range communications (DSRC). It stands for one-way or two-way short-range to medium-range wireless communication channels specifically designed for automotive use.
To ensure that everyone is talking on the same frequency, several governments reserve some spectrum for intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Both the United States and the European Union chose the 5.9-GHz band.
In October 1999, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated 75 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9-GHz band to be used by ITS. And in August 2008, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) allocated 30 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9-GHz band for ITS.
Over the past 10 years, several systems have been in use for different ITS applications, including traffic management, emergency vehicle signal priority, intersection collision avoidance, electronic parking payments, toll collection, and other transit services.
Most of those are using a type of Wi-Fi connectivity for short-range wireless communications, the IEEE 802.11p, which adds wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE). The IEEE 802.11p and its higher-layer standard, IEEE 1609, are the basis of the European standard for vehicular communication known as ETSI ITS-G5.
The main advantage of this Wi-Fi standard is that it is free to use, makes use of the 5.9-MHz spectrum reserved for ITS, and has already been implemented in many cities around the world.
The cellular industry, however, has not been happy with the development of connected vehicles and infrastructure based on the IEEE 802.11p. They want to be the global standard for vehicle communications, especially with the new fifth-generation cellular networks (5G). To do that, they have developed their products, under the 3GPP specifications, for V2V and V2X, the Cellular V2X (C-V2X) traffic intelligent systems.
As 5G networks are just starting to be present in some cities, the cellular industry has been focusing on LTE (4G) to build the systems for V2V and V2X. Because low latency is required for most services, especially vehicle-to-vehicle communication, they want to have access to 5.9 GHz for cellular use, lobbying for the exclusive use of the DSRC spectrum.
The Battle of Connectivity Systems in Europe
A year ago, the European Commission finally issued a delegated act (bill) endorsing the ITS-G5 standard as the baseline technology for direct vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure links, while using LTE and 5G cellular technology for additional communication to remote infrastructure and cloud services. The European Parliament finally approved the document on April 17.
Cellular carriers and infrastructure manufacturers were not happy with the decision. They see ITS-G5 as a threat to have cellular connectivity embedded in every vehicle manufactured, as well as the additional revenue of subscription fees.
While the Commission and Parliament were in sync to approve the bill, the final decision was up to the Council of Ministers. Typically, the Council rubber stamps the Parliament decisions, maybe with small tweaks, but in this case, the pressure of the cellular industry was too hard to ignore.
In July 2019, the European Council of Ministers reversed the Commission decision and sent the bill back to the Commission, which will have to draft a new proposal to the European Parliament and Council with a “neutral” approach, letting car manufacturers and operators decide what standard use for connected vehicles.
This was a significant blow to the companies supporting DSRC ITS-G5 standard.
With two different systems in the market and the possibility of using either of them as the basis of communications in a vehicle, the challenge is to make them compatible and ensure that services continue to operate.
Probably the biggest issue is the current infrastructure. Cities and transportation authorities have already invested millions in DSRC Wi-Fi across Europe, and now they need to add cellular connectivity to the existing systems to communicate with the vehicles using C-V2X.
The new European Commission, inaugurated in December, has not defined the new Delegated Act for ITS, expected in September.
The FCC Fight with the Automotive Industry
The U.S. market for ITS services is not absent from this fight. Not only are cellular carriers asking for the exclusive use of the 5.9-GHz spectrum, they also want to use it for additional services on LTE, including massive IoT and voice applications.
Back in 2016, the Auto Alliance sent a letter to President Barack Obama expressing its concern about the cellular industry’s intention to control the spectrum. “Those [cellular carriers] asking for delay seek to reconfigure the 5.9-GHz DSRC band in a way that would impair safety-critical applications and jeopardize their public benefits,” the letter said. “This would sweep away more than a decade of research and development, as well as delay for perhaps another decade DSRC’s life-saving benefits.”
Recently, the FCC has indicated that it is open to the idea that some of the previously reserved 5.9-GHz band could be released for other applications, including LTE, 5G, and Wi-Fi 6.
Several industry groups, carmakers like Volkswagen, NXP, and ITS America submitted comments urging the FCC to put lives first by withdrawing its proposal to give away a majority of the spectrum currently used for transportation-safety–critical communications.
The ITSA went on to say, “The FCC is proposing this change without any analysis or evidence that shows these life-saving technologies will continue to operate successfully in only 30 MHz of spectrum … Its proposal is based on an incomplete and flawed understanding of the role the 5.9-GHz band plays in creating a safer transportation network.”
Securing the 5.9-GHz band for DRSC, cellular, and Wi-Fi is essential to continue developing life-saving applications for transportation, including ADAS and the future of autonomous vehicles. Allowing other uses, such as home Wi-Fi and other cellular services, could create service disruptions and interference, making some critical systems unsafe to use.
