Each day the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates that there are 5,400 aircraft in the sky over the United States at any given time. This equates to a mind boggling 45,000 flights a day that safely navigate over 29 million square miles of airspace. That is possible due to the hard-working men and women within the Air Traffic Control system, who are aided in no small part by an array of reporting and communication systems.
One of those systems, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) allows aircraft to communicate data points like their altitude, heading, and air speed to other aircraft and controllers alike. This allows visibility for everyone in the area, and provides your altitude above sea level, direction of travel, and airspeed, to keep everyone separate and safe.
Navigating our nations roadways, on the other hand has historically been dependent upon that vehicle’s operator to keep the vehicle on the road and “between the ditches,” safely separated from other drivers, pedestrians, and obstacles (both in and adjacent to the vehicle’s path). In more recent years the addition of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) has helped ease some of that burden from the driver. On ever more congested roadways, with — let’s face it — more and more distracted drivers, ADAS has become common on today’s vehicles entering service. Systems like blind spot detection, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, and automatic emergency braking are helping drivers by reacting to unforeseen obstacles and changing conditions faster than a human driver ever could.
Another logical step in the evolution of ADAS would be to allow vehicles to communicate their intentions to one another, as well as supporting local infrastructure, as an additional early warning to potential hazards that are forthcoming.
Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communication is an idea that takes those technologies that make up the modern ADAS and extends their capabilities. It allows the vehicle to gather information on impending challenges to its safe travel and communicate directly with many of the potential obstacles it’s going to face. V2X communication encompasses a network of information gathered by a myriad of different sources. Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I), Vehicle to Pedestrian (V2P), and Vehicle to Network (V2N) are among the inputs of data the vehicle will use to determine the safest, most comfortable, and efficient course of action.
A little bit of history
Since as far back as the 1970s, government agencies and vehicle manufacturers have been experimenting with various systems of inter-vehicle communications. Endeavors like the PATH project in California and PROMETHEUS in Europe really helped lay the foundation for many of the systems and technologies in the works today.
The idea that vehicles are individual communication nodes in a larger mesh network really had its start in the mobile ad hoc network (MANET) development in the late '90s and early 2000s. The thought is MANETs allow each device to move freely in any direction, which means that they will frequently change their links to one another.
While the data that needs to be transmitted, such as speed, direction (and the rates at which those events are taking place) are universally supported, the means at which those data points are transmitted and received are not. Technology and standard debates remain surrounding what technologies will be used to form the networks.
Technology flavors
Automakers such as GM, Toyota, Kia, Subaru, Nissan, and Honda support Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) which operates in the 5.9GHz spectrum and is reserved as the “safety band” for V2X communication. Operating much like Wi-Fi, DSRC is a relatively short-range communication, but within a network of connected devices it can “hop” or extend out much further.
However, there are other players in the game, most notably 5GLTE, which has strong supporters such as Baidu in China and Volkswagen in Germany. They cite increased security, wider bandwidth, and the ability to use existing cell tower infrastructure amongst the primary reasons for their backing.
Just as recently as this past year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has pulled back on some upcoming mandates regarding V2V communication, due to the speed at which new technologies for communication are being developed. NHTSA was set to implement Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) No. 150 which would mandate V2V communication based on DSRC radiofrequency transmissions, but they have since walked that back while emphasizing the need for additional development and employment of these technologies.
Regardless of the direction decided upon, the need for additional ADAS implementation is evident just looking at highway fatality statistics. In 2023 alone, NHTSA reported that an estimated 40,990 people were killed on roadways in the United States. And while that is down from the over 42,000 people killed in 2023, it’s still an astonishing number. Just take a short drive around any town in the nation and you will see it’s no surprise that distracted driving played a significant role in those numbers.
The V2X groundwork has been laid
As stated earlier, the V2X universe comprises a multitude of different networks of communication. One of those primary networks is V2V. V2V communication allows connected vehicles on the roadway to communicate data to one another regarding things like the speed they are traveling, their location, and even if they are accelerating or decelerating and how fast they are doing so. These data points are already being shared among controllers in the vehicle via its internal networks (so the hard part of harvesting this information is already done).
Allowing vehicles in a mesh to be communication nodes and share in these inputs can greatly increase the vehicles’ ability to “see” down the road. Among the possibilities that might be in sight: upcoming obstacles, such as slowdowns; vehicles bearing down on a blind approach; and even vehicles sliding through an icy intersection. With these things "in sight," other vehicles on the road gain vital additional seconds of warning to institute evasive actions.
Much like V2V communications, V2I will allow a vehicle on the roadway additional time to react to changing roadway conditions. V2I communication would allow navigational items like traffic signals and road signs to broadcast their signals not only visually to the driver, but via over the air communication to the driver’s vehicle, instituting a backup to the driver’s response to the information being presented.
Instead of an inattentive driver blowing through a red light, or a driver missing a stop sign that is covered by an overgrown lilac bush, the vehicle’s AEB system will be able to react before the vehicle enters the intersection, potentially avoiding an accident.
Just like V2V and V2I, V2P could allow a pedestrian in a crosswalk, on an e-bike, or pushing a stroller to be seen by the approaching vehicles. It wouldn't just rely on that vehicle’s driver or on-board ADAS camera to notice a potentially out of sight, or even distracted pedestrian who may unknowingly or inadvertently wander into oncoming traffic.
Lastly, V2N communication has been utilized in vehicles in the form of navigation and streaming for the better part of two decades now. Whether by cellular network or satellite, our vehicles have been transmitting and receiving data in one form or another for everything from the streaming of music and entertainment, to over the air vehicle updates to certain onboard systems.
Pulling in network data like upcoming weather conditions and real-time traffic updates is paramount as we inch closer and closer to the widespread use of autonomous vehicles. V2N also may be vital in V2V and even V2I communication, depending on how that system is engineered.
What the future holds
Ford has shared plans on forgoing DSRC in favor of cellular based vehicle-to-everything technology, or what Ford calls C-V2X. Currently, Ford has implemented this technology widely in China in select models, which allows C-V2X connected vehicles to communicate traffic information to connected traffic lights. This allows those traffic lights to adjust timing to reduce congestion. Traffic control infrastructure is in turn able to report back a Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory (GLOSA) to drivers to help them maintain optimal speed to reduce congestion and improve efficiency.
All this sharing of data, while presenting a tremendous upside, is not without its risks. Cybersecurity is near the top of the list of headwinds that V2X communication faces. Threats to the system from hacking and jamming to data breaches all present challenges to developers as they try to build out secure, yet operable networks.
The topic of data security is an understandably delicate one. In an age where data is so valuable to so many entities, it’s harder and harder for consumers to guard their data. With recent allegations leveled at General Motors for allegedly selling consumer data about driving habits to data brokers, the industry is finding itself under a microscope regarding data privacy and usage. Guardrails about data retrieval, storage, and appropriate usage still need to be established, and it will be no small undertaking.
While new technology is quickly and continually shrinking the globe, it is only natural that automakers will continue to find ways to implement these technologies into the vehicles that we operate and service every day.
ADAS technology, implementation, and service has been a hot button topic in the automotive industry for over a decade now. V2X communication is just another added layer with ADAS that the service and repair side of the industry needs to stay on top of and study.
