SEAT, Telefónica, i2CAT, MWCapital, Ficosa and Etra will show several connected car use cases in a real city environment to enhance mobility safety

• Road infrastructure and vulnerable users “talk” to the vehicles through the existing mobile network when issuing warnings to the car in case of any danger or unforeseen event.
• The connected car communicates with all the elements of the environment thanks to the C-V2X technology, offering two types of communications, both traditional (via the mobile network) and those of direct car-to-car (V2V) connectivity.
• The deployment of 5G capabilities, specifically Ericsson’s Edge Computing solution, makes these use cases possible by providing computing capacity at the edge of the network and minimum latencies.
• Application of 5G technology to the project will facilitate testing the connection among vehicles, urban infrastructure and other vehicles.

The streets of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat will be the scenario of the connected car and assisted driving use cases via 5G in a real environment thanks to the joint work of Telefónica, SEAT, Mobile World Capital Barcelona, ​​Ficosa, ETRA and i2CAT (with the support of CTTC and UPC). Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a branch of Qualcomm Incorporated, have also participated to equip both the vehicles and the pilot environment with a technology that allows them to exchange information, with the main objective of increasing safety on the road. The project is part of the 5G Barcelona initiative whose objective is to consolidate the city of Barcelona as a reference 5G hub in Europe.

The two key elements for the fulfilment of these use cases are C-V2X technology (Cellular Vehicle to Everything) and Edge Computing. Specifically, the C-V2X technology offers a driving assistance by allowing the vehicle to communicate with all the elements of the environment (other cars, traffic lights, traffic signs, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycles, etc.). In addition, for cars to “talk” with the city it is necessary that the latencies are minimal and therefore it is necessary to deploy 5G capacities in the current network, specifically the capacity of the Edge Computing server, a large distributed brain that hosts the contents and applications very close to where the user consumes them.

Specifically, the three assisted driving use cases that will be shown in the MWC Barcelona surroundings are:

• Detection of a pedestrian in a zebra crossing: the traffic light will detect through a thermal camera the presence of pedestrian in the zebra crossing and, via Edge Computing, will warn the vehicles that will show a warning message in the control panel in case it is necessary.
• Cyclist detection in right turn: the bicycle equipped with connectivity and with an ultra-precise edge-location solution communicates with the cars around it to inform them of its location. In case of a potential collision, the cars will show a warning message in the control panel. The bike is geolocated thanks to the Ultra Wide Band beacons that have been deployed on the road.
• Detection of a car standing on the road with low visibility: the car stopped in a zone of the road with low visibility activates the emergency lights and automatically notifies the rest of the vehicles that approach it with a message in the control panel. This communication is made via the direct communication interface.

The pilot project will cover both safety while driving and aspects related to “infotainment” through the downloading of high-definition entertainment contents.

About 5G Barcelona

5GBarcelona is a public-private partnership that constitutes a neutral, open hub for the testing and roll-out of 5G technology and applications in a real city environment. It is sponsored by the Regional Government of Catalonia, Barcelona City Hall, the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation, the i2CAT Foundation, the CTTC (Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya), Atos and the UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya).

5GBarcelona aims to transform Barcelona’s metropolitan area into a leading 5G innovation laboratory with an open experimental structure for testing, creating prototypes and implementing new digital solutions.