Qualcomm said that it has completed the first C-V2X trial with Audi, Ericsson, Swarco Traffic Systems and the University of Kaiserslautern. The test was carried out to analyze the performance of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology, and provide further evidence of the complementary nature of short-range direct and cellular wide-range communication with C-V2X. Testing started in December 2016.
"We have already connected the Audi fleet with traffic lights in cities and now we look ahead as C-V2X will dramatically boost road safety and efficiency in our cities. The ConVeX project enabled Audi to test the technology under challenging real-world conditions," said Jens Koetz, Audi's head of Electrics, Electronics Networking & Energy Systems. "It is now important to define the interfaces and standards at an early stage – together with relevant stakeholders. This is of crucial importance to obtain an exact coordinate system in order to tailor further assistance systems for connected vehicles."Ericsson's head of R&D Center Eurolab said the systems will help make roads more convenient and safe in the future. Swarco's Michael Schuch noted that it has added Cellular-V2X to its traffic infrastructure portfolio for connected, cooperative and automated driving, and that the system will become a key building block in its traffic management services.
The trial was conducted with two vehicles traveling in opposite directions at two locations on the German A9 and A6 motorways. The test delivered full reliability on the reception of safety messages in line of sight conditions of up to 1.2 km, with the distance limited by the length of the test roads.
For the trial, the companies used a test bed and field tests based on third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) C-V2X direct, and network-based complementary technologies for connected vehicles and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).
The partners are part of the consortium Connected Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) of Tomorrow (ConVeX) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). They demonstrated several use cases for C-V2X, including Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) direct communication operating in the 5.9GHz ITS frequencies, as well as Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) wide area communication. Audi and Swarco’s intelligent road infrastructure were equipped with C-V2X technology based on the Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X Platform.
