Nakul Duggal
Vice President, Product Management - Automotive
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc
The automotive industry is going through an unprecedented transformation and the race toward autonomous driving is heating up across the industry.
As a leading automotive supplier, Qualcomm Technologies is playing a key role in this transformation. We have been a proud supplier of cellular-based wireless modems to the automotive industry since 2002, offering a variety of 3G, 4G LTE, and 4G LTE-Advanced modems for the automotive ecosystem. Now, we are paving the way to tomorrow’s autonomous vehicle by developing and refining several technological breakthroughs in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications, precise positioning, and 3D High Definition (HD) mapping. With our Qualcomm Snapdragon automotive platform, we’re also providing the computing performance required for infotainment, sensor fusion and embedded machine learning – all of which will be needed for the more connected, automated vehicle of tomorrow.
V2X is a key enabler for the safe, autonomous vehicle of the future, giving vehicles the ability to "talk" to each other, pedestrians, roadway infrastructure, and the cloud. By complementing other vehicle sensors with its non-line-of-sight capabilities, direct V2X communication provides a higher level of predictability and determinism by conveying location, speed, direction and even intent, all of which all other sensors need to essentially estimate.
For V2X direct communications, we support two technologies. Both operate without network infrastructure and both can utilize 5.9GHz ITS spectrum:
- IEEE 802.11p-based products (QCA6584, for example, which is commercially available today), and we are currently developing our third generation DSRC/ITS-G5 product
- 3GPP Cellular-V2X technology development and integration, including driving the competition of Release 14 specifications, followed by several trials in 2017
While 802.11p established the foundation for basic safety services, such as forward collision warning, C-V2X Rel-14 offers improved reliability, extended range, low latency and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) capabilities, which means enhanced safety use cases at higher vehicle speeds and challenging road conditions. At Mobile World Congress 2017, Qualcomm Technologies demonstrated C-V2X’s superior performance in supporting some of the enhanced safety use cases, such as disabled car after blind curve, do-not-pass and road hazard warnings in varying road conditions.
C-V2X Rel-14 has a strong evolution path to future releases and will augment Rel-14 with complementary and new capabilities, while maintaining backward compatibility. C-V2X Rel-16 will incorporate 5G NR features, providing high throughput, wideband carrier support, ultra-low latency and high reliability. It will support advanced use cases, such as see-through / high throughput sensor sharing, accurate positioning and ranging, and real-time 3D HD map update.
We are pleased to see C-V2X gaining momentum and broad ecosystem support from automotive and telecom leaders, paving the path for safer autonomous driving. To accelerate its adoption, Qualcomm is taking a critical role in driving the development of C-V2X:
- In September 2016, Qualcomm co-founded the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) and resides on the board along with AUDI AG, BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ericsson, Ford Motor Company, Huawei, Intel and Nokia.
- In 2017, Qualcomm Technologies is further accelerating the C-V2X adoption by participating in a number of important trials including the ConVeX trial in Germany with Audi, Ericsson, SWARCO and the University of Kaiserslautern; and the newly announced “Toward 5G trial in France with PSA, Orange and Ericsson.” Other trials are planned globally throughout 2018.
- To further accelerate the availability of C-V2X commercial solutions, we are working closely with key automotive suppliers to bring C-V2X technology into vehicles. For example, we announced coordinated efforts with LG to facilitate testing and adoption of 5G and C-V2X communications into vehicles.
For more information, please watch the MWC’s interview video: