Vehicle assisted secure cellular V2X for automated driving (VEHICULAR)

Research Project, 2021 – 2022

With the 5th generation of mobile communications (5G), and its evolutions, users will expect the connected society to be available with no limitations, and users will make use of bandwidth-demanding services like augmented reality and virtual office applications, also when on the move. The vehicle itself is also emerging as a heavy consumer and producer of information that needs to be communicated to the mobile communications network and cloud services like on-line maps and traffic information for its network assisted more-or-less self-driving capabilities. Another, so far, unexplored opportunity is to benefit from the fact that modern vehicles are moving multi-sensor systems that are constantly collecting information that could be very useful to support development of smart cities, such as sensing air quality, need for road maintenance, monitoring of noise levels, weather forecasts, traffic congestion levels for route optimization of critical transports, etc., information that municipalities can use to optimize the resource efficiency in the cities towards sustainability, and to implement a better city life in crowded cities.

In this context, future vehicles and transportation systems may also play an important role in wireless networks by serving as moving base stations providing additional communications capabilities for the mobile networks, and thus becoming an integrated part of the communications infrastructure to improve capacity and coverage of the operator driven mobile networks. In return, the vehicles would benefit from the additional capacity and reliability of the mobile networks for their own connectivity needs, in particular related to ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) needs for cellular vehicle to everything (C-V2X) based automated driving, in particular fully autonomous or remotely operated vehicles.

The aim of this project is to develop disruptive enabling techniques for the design of a vehicle assisted secure cellular V2X system for automated driving. Expected outcomes are: Advanced vehicles assisted beam tracking for communications at mm-wave frequency bands for fast moving vehicle communications; Insights on how to maintain security and privacy in such cooperative vehicle assisted mobile networks intended for C-V2X based automated driving; Funding applications in national and European calls; Joint MSc thesis projects; Joint journal and conference papers, at least one of each. The project will address the Transport Area of Advance/SFO Transport challenges Increasing efficiency in transport and logistics and Increasing transport safety”, and the UN Sustainable Development Goal SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities.