V2X: The future of vehicle communications
Vehicles are about to become a lot more communicative: with other road users, with the infrastructure they pass on their journeys, with cloud-based services, and even with the energy grid. This communication should make vehicles more economical to operate, as well as enabling new capabilities. Making such communication possible, though, will mean solving a series of design challenges in a rapidly evolving regulatory environment and complex engineering context.
The auto industry, and the regulators that enable it, have come up with a series of acronyms to denote the various ways in which connected cars will communicate with other entities.
V2V stands for vehicle to vehicle communications. It implies a future in which cars, vans, trucks, and even motorbikes will communicate directly with each other to share information about road conditions and hazards, and to collaborate on managing traffic.
V2I stands for vehicle to infrastructure communications and refers to techniques for connecting cars with road-management systems such as traffic lights and speed signs.
V2N stands for vehicle to network communication, and enables access to, for example, in-vehicle service providers and infotainment streams.
V2G, a lesser used acronym, stands for vehicle to grid, and implies a future in which hybrid and electric vehicles that are on charge become part of an intelligent energy distribution grid, helping to smooth out peaks and troughs in power demand by sourcing or sinking energy as needed.
And there’s even talk of V2P communications, in which, for example, when pedestrians near a crossing their smartphone announces their presence and desire to cross the road to nearby vehicles and infrastructure. Overall, expect to see plenty of mentions of V2X strategies in the next few years.
Each new form of communication will present a challenge and an opportunity to automotive system OEMs, and the component makers that supply them. Their reward for doing the necessary development should be large available markets worldwide.
V2X communications
A recent report by Juniper Research forecasts that more than 62 million vehicles will be capable of V2V communication by 2023; up from just over 1.1 million in 2019. This represents an average annual growth rate of 173% over four years. The study, Consumer Connected Cars: Telematics, In-Vehicle Apps & Connected Car Commerce 2018-2023, suggests that this year’s introduction of 5G networks will help speed up the roll-out of V2V communications. It predicted that automotive OEMs will gravitate towards 5G networks for V2V communication over other technologies; owing to their lower latency and greater range.
One of the main purposes of V2V communications is to enable greater safety on increasingly crowded roads. The US’s Department of Transport (DoT) has been researching V2V safety for a number of years. Its research program defined applications for the technology, such as helping drivers to avoid forward collisions, cross intersections more safely, keeping track of hazards in their vehicle’s blind spots, warning when other vehicles are changing lanes, suggesting drivers should not change lanes or pass other vehicles, and warning if other vehicles are out of control.
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