China-owned Volvo Cars is working with China Unicom to develop 5G based communications between cars and infrastructure in China.
The two companies have agreed to work together to research, develop and test automotive applications of 5G and emerging vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology, they said. The pair are targeting improvements in areas such as safety, sustainability, customer convenience and autonomous driving.
They offered certain examples: vehicles pre-empting road works, congestion or accidents by receiving data about incidents ahead; vehicles navigating to open parking spots with data from traffic cameras; vehicles communicating with traffic lights to establish an optimal speed and create a so-called ‘green wave’; vehicles communicating with each other to optimise safe exits and entries from and onto highways.
Henrik Green, chief technology officer at Volvo Cars, commented: “With 5G, the network performance is improving to allow for many more real-time critical services that can help the driver be safer and get a smoother and more enjoyable ride. We look forward to collaborating with China Unicom on developing those services for the Chinese market.”
Liang Baojun, vice president of China Unicom, said: “5G will fully enable the development of automatic driving, improve the safety of driving and bring a new experience by building a collaborative service system of ’people, vehicles, roadway, network and cloud‘. [We will] jointly develop a business deployment route under China’s national conditions… to become an industry model in China. ”
China is currently rolling out 5G across major cities. Volvo Cars will introduce 5G connectivity as part of new models, based on the next generation SPA2 modular vehicle architecture. China is also expected to implement its own regional standards for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies.
