Connected vehicles: how is 5G transforming the mobility of the future? Discover the webinar summary

Welcome to the fascinating world of 5G applications in smart mobility and autonomous vehicles. Through experiments and use cases developed in this field, we can glimpse the impacts on infrastructures, the technological challenges to be met, and how 5G can enrich your products and solutions linked to new mobilities.

The deployment and acceleration of 5G is a gas pedal for smart mobility, and connected vehicles that offer innovative, reliable and secure services. It also overcomes challenges in terms of security, cooperation between players, and data management, while questioning our collective choices for smart cities.

Rodolphe Thyboyeau, Information Systems Manager, Keolis
André Bottaro, IoT Software Engineering Project Manager, Orange
Rémy Dangla, Regional Sales Manager, EasyMile
Renaud Hanus, Technical Director, Actia Group
Yves Le Henaff, CEO, Kawantech

A testing ground in Toulouse

André Bottaro is an expert in the field of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and connected cars. For him, “the challenge at Orange is to provide connectivity solutions to improve all forms of travel: reducing journey times and CO2 emissions, increasing comfort and safety”. This is an issue of major societal importance, given the high death toll on the roads (3,000 a year in France, over a million worldwide). “This macabre toll moves us, motivates us, and we share Europe’s Vision Zero: the vision of a world with zero deaths and zero injuries on the roads by 2050,” he explains.

In this respect, André Bottaro presents a platform that has no equivalent in France: “the Autocampus project in Toulouse. It’s a unique testing ground, where the autonomous connected vehicle is tested in a dense urban environment, with part of the road open to public traffic. The site is open to all interested industrial and academic players. Numerous companies such as Kawantech and EasyMile are already taking part.

Remy Dangla is one of the managers of EasyMile, a Toulouse-based company specializing in autonomous mobility software solutions for the transport of people and goods, which has carried out experiments here. “We are currently working on level 4 autonomy (100% autonomous vehicle in a known environment), and are carrying out tests on a pre-mapped circuit at the Autocampus, using a multitude of sensors (lidars, radars, cameras).”

In this context, Remy Dangla emphasizes the need for a human actor and a high-performance communications system: “For safety reasons, most of the intelligence is embedded in the vehicle. And there’s always a human involved in the loop, even in the absence of a driver, who is in a supervision center. The importance of 5G for us here is to connect the vehicle and the supervisor, to make sure that the latter has all the information at his disposal in situations where he needs to intervene. To do this, we need high, guaranteed bandwidth for the transfer of video streams and to keep latency well under control so that the supervisor can see what’s happening with the vehicle in real time.”

The first building blocks of intelligent mobility

Rodolphe Thyboyeau, head of innovation at Keolis, unveils an experiment on connected buses taking place this time in the Rennes metropolis, with the local Orange 5G Lab: “A shuttle designed for people with reduced mobility makes a looped route with materialized stops (bus shelters or stop posts), but can also make stops on demand.”

“To offer this to our users, the shuttle is finely geolocated on our mobile application, thanks to the 5G GPS modems integrated into the buses,” he explains, before adding: ”And other technologies will soon be added, such as a real-time measurement solution enabling users to know whether the shuttle is loaded, and the number of seats available.”

For its part, Kawantech offers a host of innovations for its connected street lamps. To make roads safer, more efficient and more comfortable, we’re working to make streetlights more intelligent, and to enhance them with new services,” explains CEO Yves Le Henaff. For example, by making it capable of modulating its power according to the users (pedestrians, bicycles, cars) spotted by sensors capable of analyzing what’s happening on the road.”

New mobility: what does 5G really bring?

“5G brings a more global vision to autonomous vehicles, which remain limited by their on-board sensors and obstacles on the road in dense urban environments,” adds André Bottaro. It enables the AIs in these vehicles to know what’s happening after the next bend in the road, to know that children are hiding behind another vehicle and are about to cross. In addition to vehicles, this global vision could eventually be applied to all street furniture, and even to the entire road infrastructure.

However, to make this global vision a reality, an end-to-end communication system is needed, from data capture (street furniture and infrastructure sensors) to the sending of recommendations (to autonomous vehicles) by operators, or alerts to users (on mobile apps). For André Bottaro: “This means distributing intelligence and computing capacity in the form of an interoperable standard used by all players, which already exists: the V2X (Vehicle to Everything) standard. Today, we offer this interoperability in 4G, but 5G brings the computing capacity required to manage all this data, and the quality of service needed to guarantee low latency in the millisecond range.”

Rodolphe Thyboyeau confirms that 5G technology opens up a whole new world of possibilities: “The multiplication of use cases requires completely different bandwidths and levels of security. Tomorrow, for example, we could imagine all rolling stock (metros, buses) that incorporates cameras being connected live, to produce a real-time view of what’s happening on board, to guarantee the safety of agents and passengers.”

In his view, 5G can also be approached from the angle of rationalizing on-board equipment: “The addition of connected systems leads to a multiplication of hardware. Some buses are equipped with 2 to 9 modems to manage different uses. With 5G, we can equip them with a single multi-operator, multi-VPN 5G router, enabling uses to be shared in complete security, and offering sufficient bandwidth, too.”

What about logistics?

“Large-vehicle manufacturers and equipment suppliers have long since converted to connectivity,” explains Renaud Hanus, Actia’s Technical Director. The big difference is that in-vehicle equipment, which used to be optional, is now ubiquitous. In this segment, it’s above all a question of productivity: better management of truck fleets, development of precision farming, optimization of fuel consumption, reduction of vehicle downtime, etc.” These are just some of the use cases that will benefit from Actia’s expertise. These are all applications that require high-speed, reliable, low-latency communication. That’s precisely the promise of 5G Standalone!

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5G plays a key role in the evolution of autonomous cars. With instant communication between vehicles and their environment, these cars can make decisions in real time, improving road safety. Automakers are focusing on the development of advanced sensors and detection systems that take advantage of 5G to enable autonomous cars to better apprehend their environment, from pedestrians to other vehicles and potential obstacles.

The Great Transition to Electric Models

5G technology has not only revolutionized driving, it has also pushed automakers towards electric models. These connected electric vehicles benefit from the efficiency of 5G to optimize their range and improve their overall performance. With smarter energy management and faster charging, connected electric cars are becoming more attractive to consumers concerned about the environment and fuel costs.

In conclusion, 5G connected vehicle technology is revolutionizing the automotive industry. By enabling instant communication with the network, 5G is paving the way for safer, smarter driving, as well as the emergence of autonomous cars. Carmakers are moving in this direction to offer ever more innovative connected electric models, marking a turning point in the future of the automobile.