Currently, in the automotive industry, the technology of the connected car is trending. A connected car is a vehicle which is enabled to communicate with its environment. So, the connected car can communicate to other vehicles and infrastructure. The communication of the connected car is enabled by the implementation of 4G internet connectivity in the car. However, the 4G internet connection has still some disadvantages, for example, a latency of 30 to 50 milliseconds. In the automotive industry, there is another trending technology which is a successor of the connected car, autonomous driving (Pallenberg, 2015).
However, to implement autonomous driving, the current latency of the 4G connection is a major issue. Will you trust an autonomous vehicle when you have the information that every decision will be made with a 30-50 milliseconds latency? It is 200 milliseconds faster compared to the human reaction time. Besides the latency,
Recently, the university of Berkeley published an article about the new upcoming network, 5G. 5G could be the key for the automotive industry to implement autonomous driving. This is because of two reasons. First, the latency of the 5G network is significantly shorter with a 1 millisecond latency. Second, the 5G can download and upload at extremely high speed for a billion connection (J Teece, 2017). Therefore, the autonomous car will be able to communicate real-time with its environment and react to it which will accelerate the development process.
Excluding the other ‘headscratchers’ of autonomous driving such as AI mistakes and cybersecurity, if the automotive industry would provide the opportunity of autonomous cars to the society. Would you be willing to give up control knowing that you would react quicker to any situation? Would the society already be willing to adapt to the technology?
In my opinion, the technology of autonomous driving will be a disrupting technology which will massively improve many problems in the current society.
J Teece, D. (2017). 5G Mobile: Disrupting the Automotive Sector. Geraadpleegd van https://www.qualcomm.com/media/documents/files/5g-mobile-disrupting-the-automotive-sector.pdf
Pallenberg, S. (2015, September 22). How 5G Will Change the Connected Car [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA3p0FK4JxM&t=302s
hi Max,
Thank you for your contribution. I think it is interesting to see the possibilities 5G would provide in everyday life. The increased speed of 300% to 500% is incredible. Nevertheless, you mention that human reactions are about 250 milliseconds. Since 4G would already be faster than human action, is there really a need for 5G implementation? This would mean that automated driving already has a faster reaction time than humans could ever have. How do you think 5G will provide additional benefits?
Hi Mas
Thank you for your comment, I agree with you that 4G would already be faster comparing the latency with the human reaction. However, 4G is missing some other properties that have to be met to enable autonomous driving. For example, when implemented, the number of connected devices, including autonomous car,that have 4G internet connectivity increase with hundreds of millions compared to the present. Currently, it is expected that the 4G network cannot handle this number of connected devices. The implementation of 5G will give the possibility to provide internet connectivity for every device.