Future vehicles will not only be connected, they will also be autonomous. These connected and autonomous vehicles will require a new ecosystem with specific requirements capable of supporting new workloads and satisfying real-time requirements. This new ecosystem will include not just the vehicles themselves and the required road infrastructure, but also a 5G network infrastructure and the supporting data network located in the cloud.
Expanding the 3GPP platform to the automotive industry, the initial V2X studies1 and operational scenarios focused on a number of communication types and applications. These included V2V (Vehicle to Vehicle), V2P (Vehicle to Pedestrian), V2I (Vehicle to Infrastructure) and V2N (Vehicle to Network) communication types. Subsequently, more advanced applications have been identified in support of enhanced V2X services2 . These include vehicle platooning, co-operative operation and sensor sharing, remote driving and advanced driving.
Facilitating these enhanced V2X services, 5G V2X facilitates two different modes of operation; vehicle to vehicle communication and vehicle to network communication.
Vehicle to vehicle communication takes place over the PC5 reference point in V2X communication. There are two PC5 reference points available in mobile networks. These comprise of the LTE based PC5 and the NR based PC5 reference points. A device utilizing V2X communication, such as an autonomous vehicle may use either type or both, depending on the services it supports. Direct communication will enable vehicle platooning, sensor sharing, co-operative lane changing, as well as the more critical services such as collision avoidance and emergency trajectory alignment to take place and be utilized.
Vehicle to network communication takes place across the Uu air interface between the vehicle and the NG-RAN. V2X communication over Uu is performed via unicast. This allows a PDU session to be established, enabling the device within an autonomous vehicle to communicate with the V2X Application Server, and vice versa. This will enable and facilitate access to very high-resolution digital mapping, infotainment services, such as music and video streaming, as well as telematic services, e.g. traffic and weather condition updates.
1 3GPP TR 22.885 – Study on LTE support for V2X services
2 3GPP TR 22.886 – Study on 5G support for V2X services