The reality of a connected-vehicle has implications for a range of vehicle and infrastructure systems.
The traditional automotive industry is trying to fully appreciate the impact of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications.
However, it is possible people are overlooking two equally and possibly much more important considerations; standards and business models.
It is quite arguable that, without these in place, the technologies themselves will never become ubiquitous.
There is also a growing requirement to access the features of their smart devices within their cars and so there will be some very strong consumer forces driving the way the industry will have to respond.
This is now being referred to as vehicle to everything (V2X) communications, and the standards and functionality for rolling out V2X capabilities will have to be introduced in such a way as to integrate with existing advanced driver assist systems (ADAS) in many cars.
Similarly, the newly emerging CACC (Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control) systems by which adjacent vehicles can share speed, position and even driver behaviour information automatically, will have to do the same with existing adaptive cruise control systems.
However a fully end-to-end V2X system is another step on again from these types of V2V systems and is what is needed to begin to deliver a fully Co-operative Intelligent Transport System (C-ITS).
The concept of vehicles interacting directly with each other and other external infrastructure such as the internet and other non-automotive machines, launches the automotive industry headlong into the M2M space. This creates the need for very high levels of security and regulation and raises at least as many questions as it does new opportunities.
The objectives of implementing V2X communications is to provide road safety and security and to make best use of the real-time traffic and journey data that becomes available. Consideration must be given to conformance, interoperability and co-existence with existing ‘legacy’ systems:
Ultimately the objective is to develop much smarter, safer, more reliable, more efficient transport systems, delivering new levels of intelligence to people’s journeys (urban and motorway), in ways not even considered before. Examples include the ‘platooning’ (slip-streaming) of potentially large numbers of trucks for maximising fleet fuel efficiency, avoiding and even actively controlling vehicles that are being driven dangerously and recognising and responding to the early signs of driver illness or sleep.
Collectively, all of these systems require multiple rugged communications mechanisms and many of these will depend on the deployment of roadside sensor systems. Arguably much of this will be cellular but there is also the opportunity for meshed networks and high speed Wide Area Networks (WAN) (e.g. 802.11p) implemented though C-ITS roadside units (RSUs).
The industry will have to tackle very big challenges as it faces the next round of standards battles to work out how to meet the real-world demands of V2X systems and the commercial business models that will pervade every aspect of the ‘connected vehicle’.
Still in their early days, many new standards are emerging to bring a wide range of diverse functionality together.
Standardisation of sensor systems will be important. Equally fundamental to the success of these new networks is the security of the personal data that will be transferred across them and new Public key Infrastructure (PKI) standards are also rolling out in support of this.
There are examples of some mandatory rollouts that are, while not particularly popular with the industry, serving to accelerate the implementation of early standards such as the European ‘eCall’ emergency system. This utilises existing cellular and modem communications infrastructure to provide automatic warning to emergency services of vehicle accidents and will become mandatory on all new vehicles in Europe during 2015.
However, compared to the level and complexity of standards that will be needed for full V2X inter-operation, these are very simple systems and it’s down to the new European initiatives such as the Car-to-Car Consortium, Amsterdam Group and MOBiNET to drive thinking to the levels required to make V2X a reality.
As it stands, there are already multiple co-operative vehicle R&D programmes underway such as the ‘SPITS’ (Strategic Platform for Intelligent Transport Systems) trials in London and the European Commission has 15 pilot programmes running across northern Europe, driving adoption of new standards for rollout in 2015.
So with the first set of V2X standards now imminent, the opportunity for sensor system developers and manufacturers in this market is undoubtedly firming up.
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