BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a notice on accelerating the development of 5G technology On March 24, aiming to promote the coordinated development of 5G and internet of vehicles (IoV).
"5G IoV is where commercial 5G links with smart cars, both of which are trillion-yuan scale industries", Wu Dongsheng, vice president and strategic brand manager with Gosuncn Technology Group, told Shanghai Securities News.
The development of 5G IoV can simultaneously advance the transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry and accelerate the development of 5G industry, Wu said.
Activating IoV application scenarios
The IoV is a large system network based on in-car internet, vehicle-to-vehicle network and vehicle-carried mobile internet, which uses wireless communication and information exchange between vehicles, vehicles and roads, vehicles and people and vehicles and networks, i.e. vehicle to everything (V2X), according to the agreed communication protocols and data interaction standards. Vehicle-based information service, intelligent network connection and intelligent transportation are considered to be the three development stages of the IoV.
The IoV has already realized on-board information service function in the 4G era, and partially realized the intelligent network function among new energy vehicles (NEVs) as car makers need to remotely monitor real-time NEV data and connect to NEV public data collection platform due to relevant regulations.
However, 4G is already overstretched in IoV applications due to its low transmission speed compared to 5G.
"The application of 5G will activate the IoV", Tu Ke, president of China division of the Intelligent Car Networking Co., Ltd. of Joyson Electronic, told Shanghai Securities News. In his view, the introduction of network rate, delay, access capacity to MEC (mobile edge computing) and network slices can make "5G+ IoV" a major support for future smart life.
5G technology will enable a series of new IoV application scenarios, including autonomous driving, sensory sharing and remote driving. Yang Peng, V2X product manager of Joyson Intelligent Car Networking Co., Ltd., noted that the company's C-V2X platform products are able to support more than 15 scenarios. "There are a number of new scenarios in the pipeline, and we can customize specific scenarios on demand," Yang said.
"Smart cars" on "smart roads"
The notice made it clear that the IoV will be included in China's new information infrastructure construction project. In the eyes of insiders, "smart car" and "smart road" will develop hand in hand.
"For L2 intelligent driving, road requirement is the installation of terminal devices for communication. But for L3 or higher, road terminal devices will require the addition of devices of MEC, AI, sensing, etc.", according to Tu Ke, noting that the improvement of vehicle sensory ability will inevitably give rise to more "smart roads". While the improvement in the capabilities of road terminal devices will also drive the emergence of more "smart cars".
The intelligentization of cars and roads lays a foundation for intelligent transportation and smart cities. Important communication standards and protocols for smart cities and intelligent transportation construction are incorporated in the MIIT notice. This means smart cities and intelligent transportation will act as two major engines for the development of the IoV industry, said Wu Dongsheng.
"Take our smart city project in Germany for example. The project is to provide an integrated vehicle terminal equipment solution with software algorithms and hardware units for intelligent retrofitting of traffic lights and collaborative lane switching," said Tu, "the 5G IoV can transform both roads and cars into 'sensory organs' for cities."
Integrating two trillion-yuan-level industries
Smart cars have been regarded as a major force for the application of commercial 5G technology.
China Securities Cooperation (CSC) predicts that from 2020 to 2025, 52,000 new urban intersections covered by C-V2X will be added, which will cover 112,000 kilometers of high-speed/express roads, with a total investment of 62.84 billion yuan, of which 18.18 billion yuan will be pumped into roadside units (RSUs).
According to Essence Securities, if the road network under the IoV starts to cover the whole country from the expressway, the cost to upgrade the roads is expected to reach 10 trillion yuan based on the current construction and reconstruction cost of millions of yuan per kilometer of roads.
In terms of on-board terminals, currently, the models with medium and high configuration manufactured by domestic autonomous car makers are all equipped with network connection function. Changan Automobile announced that it would no longer sell off-line models from this year onwards. TF Securities estimated that additional hardware purchases for smart cars will be at least 3,000 U.S. dollars per unit. ResearchInChina located in Beijing estimated that 14.16 million sets of intelligent terminals will be equipped on passenger vehicles by 2023, so the on-board terminal market is expected to reach at least 42.48 billion U.S. dollars.
Beyond the hardware, the exploration in the business model of 5G IoV might feed a bigger market. "In the future, the problem will not be the hardware, but those challenges coming from operation end. How to integrate all kinds of information and commercialize it poses a bigger challenge, which also leaves room for the market", said Zhu Lin.
5G IoV, in spite of great prospect, also faces other challenges as well. The frequency, safety and standards of 5G IoV need to be solved urgently, according to Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, noting that relevant ethical, moral and legal issues also call for attention. (Edited by Niu Huizhe with Xinhua Silk Road, niuhuizhe@xinhua.org)
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