5GAA event focused on multi-vendor environments for C-V2X
Test company Dekra, which has made automotive and automotive-mobility testing an area of focus, recently hosted a cellular-vehicle-to-everything interoperability testing event for the 5G Automotive Association at its test track facility in Klettwitz, Germany at Lausitzring. Dekra purchased the race track which the company purchased in 2017 with the intent to develop it into an automotive test facility that would eventually include 5G test capabilities.
The InterOp Testfest was designed to “assess the interoperability between [C-V2X] devices from multiple vendors, researching various situations and application fields,” Dekra said. Participating companies included Qualcomm, Huawei, Samsung’s Harman, Vodafone Automotive, Ford, Savari, Commsignia, Cohda Wireless and others.
“The members found that 96% of the 249 safety test cases communicated successfully on both the European ETSI ITS standards as well as the corresponding IEEE/SAE ITS standards from the USA: an exceptional level of 5G interoperability,” Dekra reported.
Meanwhile, Dekra’s CEO Stefan Kölbl has said that the company is “pursuing ambitious goals in China,” where it recently opened its first inspection station for passenger cars in Shenzen, with a second one under construction in Beijing. The facility in Beijing is expected to be Dekra’s largest automotive testing facility in the world, where the company will support inspection of around 180,000 vehicles annually (including passenger cars, trucks and busses).
Dekra releases limited numbers on its performance and recently reported that for the first quarter of this year, revenue was up nearly 5% to more than 800 million Euros. The company says it is on track for its 16th consecutive year of growth, with annual growth between 4-6%. Dekra reported that its consolidated revenues were up 6.6% to 3.3 billion Euros for the full year 2018, and its staff headcount was at nearly 45,200. More than half of its employees are based outside of Germany, the company said, and its international business “has continued its positive development” and reached 1.3 billion Euros.
