Will Self-Driving Vehicles Sharpen Our Focus on Reliability?

摘要

IN A PREVIOUS column, I enthused about the prospects for 5G to transform lives for the better, supporting new services that take advantage of ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) and capacity for massive machine-type communications, or mMTC. One place the impact of 5G will be felt is on the road, where machines will assume the entire decision-making from humans. Leveraging 5G's guaranteed latency below lms for effective real-time performance, the prospects for mission-critical V2X vehicle-to-everything communication can become real. Vehicle-to-infrastructure interactions with smart signs should result in smoother, safer journeys, and vehicle-to-vehicle connections that share information about presence and position should avert huge numbers of "sorry, I didn't see you" accidents. Of course, it will take time for smart infrastructure to evolve and for V2X-equipped cars to enter the market. But it's quite clear, even now, that cars are destined no longer to be islands. Ultimately, it's a matter of when, not if, our road journeys come to be handled by fully self-driving vehicles.