In one of the first articles in this Blog we already talked about the future that awaits us with the autonomous car, which in some scenarios is still seen as Science Fiction, despite the fact that there are already many pilots and tests with draft marks involved in the automotive sector such as Tesla, Volvo, Jaguar, Toyota, Ford or Honda, or Google, Apple, Qualcomm, Intel, Baidu or Samsung, to name others in the technological field that also want to roll down the same road.
Many experts still predict a road full of obstacles until they can see roads full of vehicles without drivers, especially after recently an autonomous Uber car was involved in a fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona. Aspects such as security or cybersecurity, or the ethics of the algorithms that manage the decisions that the autonomous car itself has to make are still to be elucidated, or the same Regulation that has to establish the rules by which this new one should be governed mobility industry in which driving, self-driving, technology, telecommunications, electricity, sharing, etc., mix and converge.
And in this now complex panorama, 5G and 6G super-high-speed communications networks also have to arrive. Although, with the current 4.5G networks, vehicles can connect with each other, it will be with 5G and 6G when the connectivity between all the actors in the circulation, autonomous, semi-autonomous or driver-driven cars, pedestrians, pets, Administrations, restaurants or content companies will be able to manage everything that happens live and in real time.
The 5G networks will be in charge of transmitting the information collected by the sensors of all the connected ‘things’, and among them the vehicles, and downloading the huge amounts of data that they will generate. IBM, for example, says that by 2020, connected, non-autonomous vehicles will generate 350MB of data every second. And with that data, which will circulate in real time through the networks, it will be possible to interact so that the car itself and the algorithms make decisions, and hopefully ethical and correct decisions.
The reality of autonomous driving therefore seems still a long way off. By 2038 according to consultants such as Strategy Analitics, as we have published in this Blog. But it is also closer, as we have seen this past week in Talavera de la Reina. There, a milestone has been carried out that should be considered a pioneer, since for the first time in the world an autonomous car without a driver has circulated thanks to a 5G network installed in that town.
An Ericsson 5G terminal and the CarMedia Solutions platform have been installed in an EZ10 electric minibus, from the French company EasyMile, to enjoy multimedia content, digital services and virtual office applications during the journey. And all this connected to a Telefónica mobile unit where a 5G antenna also from Ericsson has been deployed.
Although these networks are not yet commercial, and probably will not be until 2020, the next three years these same companies will be the protagonists of more tests and use cases in Talavera and Segovia for when 5G becomes a reality. Ericsson says that in 5 years 20 percent of the world’s population will already have 5G, and there will be around a billion devices, people and things connected to this type of networks, which will allow data transmission speeds from 1 Gbps and with latencies or response times below two milliseconds.
The fifth screen, or the third room as the experts also call it, will be one of the use cases or experiences to be tested in Talavera. This was seen last week in the EZ10 electric minibus thanks to the CarMedia platform that offered an immersive and multimedia experience contextualized with the environment on the screen inside the vehicle.
The EasyMile electric vehicle was equipped with the most advanced technology in autonomous driving, integrating eight sensors (LIDAR, GPS, video cameras) that allow analyzing the environment and creating a three-dimensional map of it. The autonomous vehicle, being permanently connected, could be managed remotely, allowing real-time access to its internal telemetry data -sensors, extremely precise location, speed, turning range, etc.-, so that it could be acted upon at any time. instantly, and thanks precisely to the low latencies that 5G networks make possible.
Right now, consumers can buy models from Tesla, BMW, and other brands that offer a range of semi-autonomous features. And models of the car that will be launched this year, such as the 2019 Audi A8, will go a step further by allowing drivers, under certain circumstances, to let the car take full control. By 2025, according to BI Intelligence, about 14 million semi or fully autonomous vehicles will be on the roads of the United States, resulting in an equal number of drivers who can divert their attention from the road. The upcoming Audi A8, for example, will allow the driver and passengers to view video content on the built-in infotainment screen. Autonomy will open the door for consumers to make better use of their time in the car for media and entertainment.
McKinsey is very clear about the autonomous car, in one of his recent reports in which he talks about the automotive revolution and the prospects until 2030: “when the technological and regulatory problems are solved, up to 15 percent of the new cars in 2030 could be fully autonomous ”.
