Overview of Vehicle to Everything (V2X) or Car to Everything (C2X) Communication

Welcome to my First Blog. (Willkommen in meinem ersten Blog) 😃

This blog will give you brief introduction about exciting technology named as vehicle to everything (V2X) communication, connected vehicles. After reading this blog, you will get to know the importance of V2X communication. If you want to dive deep into this exhilarating technology, i would recommend some links (at the end of the blog) that you should follow. 

The number of vehicles on road are increasing day by day causing more road accidents and traffic jams etc. In order to improve road safety by reducing the number of road accidents, vehicles should be able to get information about road in terms of accident, condition of road surface etc. in close proximity. The information will help the vehicles to make protective actions appropriately by means of exchanging messages with each other.

The concept of V2X communication has been brought in to resolve these difficulties where vehicles have the ability to communicate with other vehicles and also with infrastructure present on the road. The concept of V2X communication can be considered as a wireless sensor system or a wireless technology that is enabling vehicles to share information with each other in terms of a communication channel.

V2X stands for Vehicle to Everything communication. V2X communication consists of:

• Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) Communication
• Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) Communication
• Vehicle to Network (V2N) Communication
• Vehicle to Pedestrian (V2P) Communication

The pictorial representation of types of V2X communication can be seen in the figure below:

Types of V2X Communication

There are two types of communication technologies that are being used for V2X communication that includes:

• WLAN based V2X communication
• Cellular based V2X communication

Standardization based on WLAN-V2X completely differs from Cellular-V2X communication. Specifications of WLAN based V2X communication was published by IEEE based on protocol IEEE 802.11p. IEEE 802.11p is an authorized modification to IEEE 802.11 standard that is used to add wireless access in vehicular environment. Direct communication between V2V and V2I using the licensed intelligent transportation system (ITS) band of 5.9 GHz can be made using IEEE 802.11p. WLAN based V2X communication is mentioned as dedicated short range communication (DSRC). DSRC is comprised of standards defined by IEEE (Institute of electrical and electronics engineers) and society of automotive engineers (SAE). DSRC uses protocol 802.11p at the physical and medium access control (MAC) layer. Usage of the protocol at physical and MAC layer will enable the vehicles to circulate appropriate security information directly to the pedestrians and neighboring vehicles.

The other technology that is used for V2X communication is cellular V2X also known as C-V2X. V2X based on cellular technology was developed within 3GPP. In release 14, 3GPP stated features for V2X communication to support V2X services based on LTE as fundamental technology. C-V2X is often called LTE-V2X because functionality of C-V2X is based on LTE. The functionalities that are supported by C-V2X comprise of direct V2V, V2I, V2P and V2N communication. C-V2X offers number of advantages over IEEE based V2X communication in a way that C-V2X offers much extended coverage area, deterministic security, guaranteed quality of service (QoS) and improved technical service etc. The applications includes intelligent transportation, intelligently connected vehicles and autonomous driving etc. 

Recommended links: 

1. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7426684
2. https://www.standards.its.dot.gov/Factsheets/Factsheet/80
3. https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/36_series/36.885/
4. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5514475