Cisco and Verizon collaborated on a successful demonstration in Las Vegas where they showed that cellular and mobile edge compute (MEC) technology can enable autonomous driving solutions without the use of physical roadside units to extend radio signals.
Specifically, they said the Cisco and Verizon test proved that Verizon’s LTE network and public 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength, together with Cisco Catalyst IR1101 routers in connected infrastructure, can meet the latency thresholds required for autonomous driving applications – replacing the roadside radios previously required to meet those needs.
It’s significant because those physical roadside units are a costly element to the safer driving scenarios envisioned with wireless technologies, namely C-V2X. According to the companies, the result “paves a simpler and more efficient route” to powering applications such as autonomous/unmanned last-mile delivery bots and robotaxis in cities like Las Vegas, where public MEC technologies exist.
In addition, “cities and roadway operators could create safer roads with C-V2X applications including pedestrian protection, emergency and transit vehicle pre-emption, on and off-ramp protection (e.g., when a loaded truck needs autonomous guidance to merge or brake safely),” and potentially others that involve vehicles approaching intersections with traffic signals, according to a press release.
The companies note that autonomous features in connected vehicles have always relied on roadside radios to extend the signals that vehicles use for low-latency communication with each other and surrounding connected infrastructure.
By using LTE and edge compute to virtualize the role of the roadside units, C-V2X communications proved to be faster, more reliable and more streamlined, “likely to result in improved efficiency and cost effectiveness for municipalities, infrastructure providers and application developers working with autonomous vehicles,” according to the release.
“This test is a huge milestone in proving that the future of connectivity for IoT applications can be powered by cellular,” said Krishna Iyer, director of Systems Architecture at Verizon, in a statement. “We’re marking the strength of mobile edge compute platforms for connected transportation innovation with much more streamlined architecture. Together with Cisco technologies, we’re setting the foundation potentially to realize a ubiquitous IoT in the connected and autonomous future of driving.”
Cisco at the edge
Cisco didn’t say exactly how many units are deployed, but it’s working with roadway operators around the globe on C-V2X deployments, according to Mark Knellinger, lead Transportation Solutions architect at Cisco.
Most of these operators have deployed Cisco Edge Intelligence combined with a C-V2X roadside unit, allowing the operators to move more quickly to make applications available now and to existing devices, such as vehicles with Verizon LTE as well as cell phone applications, he told Fierce.
He confirmed that the cost of the Verizon Cisco Virtual RSU is much less than traditional roadside radio-based deployments. A single industrial router can be installed in the existing roadside cabinet and deployed to access these services, and there’s no FCC licensing involved.
The question arises as to whether there’s enough spectrum to support all of these vehicular applications. The FCC in 2020 voted on repurposing the 5.850-5.925 GHz band, reallocating 45 MHz of the 5.9 GHz spectrum for vehicular use. (This followed a long fight over various issues, including DSRC and C-V2X.)
Knellinger acknowledged there are lawsuits attempting to get the FCC's decision overturned, but there’s “no current capacity for change,” he said. ITS America also has made a request for additional spectrum in a different band.