Infrastructure, spectrum among obstacles for connected cars

Traffic on the Internet of Things (IoT) is forecast to skyrocket over the coming years, and though vehicles will be part of that network, there are still a number of challenges, including infrastructure, security and spectrum, that have to be addressed before true “connected” cars can take to Canadian roads. “The big cost is the roadside infrastructure, and nobody has a viable business model for paying for that,” Barrie Kirk, an engineer and executive director of the think tank Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence (CAVCOE), said in an email. “You can’t expect governments to pay. If you think about all the hundreds of thousands of rural roads, it’s just impossible to put in infrastructure along every kilometer of road in the country.” This means that cars travelling across the country cease to be “connected” where no infrastructure exists. In the case of semi-autonomous cars — such as those currently being tested on North American roads —they would be handed off to the human. Those cars involve technologies that don’t necessarily require cars to communicate with each other in real time, or with the infrastructure. But the ultimate connected cars of the future will have no ability for a hand-off to humans behind the wheel — meaning a lack of connectivity is an obvious problem that needs to be rectified. It’s an issue spectrum regulators in both Canada and the United States recognize. Innovation, Science and Economic Development and the Federal Communication Commission are working together so that cars don’t encounter connectivity issues between borders. ISED spokesman Hans Parmer said in an email that ISED will consult on facilitating “cross-border use of systems and equipment.” The spectrum the cars will run on has already been allocated. In Canada, it’s the 5850-5925 MHz frequency band, which, as of 2004, has been dedicated exclusively to technology known as dedicated short-ranged communications (DSRC). As the only technology allowed in the band, the DSRC allows vehicles to talk to each other and to infrastructure, such as traffic lights, to reduce the number of accidents. Similar to WiFi, DSRC will be a license-exempt technology, Parmar said, meaning that ISED does not plan to auction any of the 5.9 GHz spectrum or designate any for use by the telecommunications companies. It’s also still early days. Parmar said ISED has seen “no demand expressed yet for spectrum to support driverless cars.” However, it recognizes that because of “the growing interest for this application, we plan to engage potential stakeholders to understand the spectrum requirements.” During manufacturing, cars will be outfitted with communications devices that will not need to be licensed, though Parmar added the devices would need to meet certain technical standards. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, cars that use vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications “need secure, wireless interface dependability in extreme weather conditions, and short time delays; all of which are facilitated by DSRC.” That stability and reliability is another potential problem for connected cars, according to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. consultant Duncan Stewart. The nature of the wireless network, as he put it in a phone interview, “isn’t everywhere, it’s not always reliable and there’s a thing called latency.” Latency is the length of time it takes information to make a round trip, from the computer to the server and back. “When my car fails, I need to have a broadband connection to the wireless network or people will die,” Stewart said. Then, I need that coverage not only in all cars, but I need it all across Canada. It needs to be pervasive, it needs to be always on, it needs to be ultra reliable.” Stewart added that a concentration of connected cars in a particular area and going through the same cell tower would mean “latency gets worse when you need it to get better. That’s going to be a significant issue.” Security is another potential problem, as evidenced by a recent May accident that cost a Florida man his life. A Tesla Model S collided with a trailer after the man put the vehicle in autopilot, according to a June 30 statement made by Tesla Motors Inc. “Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied,” it read. It’s the first death of its kind. The statement added that the car passed under the trailer as it was travelling perpendicular to it, with the bottom of the trailer clipping the windshield of the car. The company said the autopilot is just an “assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times.” Tesla said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) “is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot” after the incident. Earlier this year, Alphabet Inc. released a report that showed human control of a driverless vehicle was required in 341 instances, the majority of which were due to technology failures. David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada, said in a phone interview that consumer acceptance of automated technology will have to factor into the equation as well. “Some of the studies I’ve seen suggested that people are certainly more willing to be in an automated vehicle when they have the ability to take control of the vehicle again, as opposed to when they’re being chauffeured around in the back seat.” Still, wireless carriers stand to benefit from the emergence of connected cars, as the Wire Report reported in 2014. “I see substantial opportunities (for wireless companies),” Kirk said. “The use cases include infotainment, downloading vehicle software and maps, uploading data from the many sensors, telematics, anti-collision systems…the carriers will definitely be involved in the CV (connected vehicle) services that use cell-phone technologies.” Troy Crandall, an analyst at 3Macs, said in a phone interview that the nature of the driverless car opens up a more leisure experience, which can mean more data consumption. “If you look at how bandwidth consumption continues to grow, I think that probably somewhat fits into the current pattern,” Crandall said. “I don’t think that (car navigation), in itself, will be a huge data glutton; it’ll be the people in the car.” Stewart also noted that “under the way the auto manufactures are talking about this, they are not planning on enormous amounts of spectrum being available or needed or required.” 5G networks could also emerge as a competitive technology to DSRC. The 5G network will have higher data rates (10 times that of 4G), lower latency and the “option of direct vehicle-to-vehicle and device-to-device connectivity without going through a tower,” Kirk said. “If you can use the same spectrum in multiple ways, the business model becomes a lot easier than having single-purpose devices and single-purpose spectrum,” he added. But as with other IoT devices, a big concern is security. As such, Kirk said cyber security and the risk of hacking will be a “huge issue.” He added that the remote hacking of a Jeep Cherokee, which was disabled by two security researchers, in St. Louis last year raised awareness of the issue and showed that the auto industry needs to do a better job of securing vehicles against vulnerabilities. Another potential issue is radio interference with DSRC — south of the border, the FCC is currently exploring opening the 5.9 GHz spectrum to other uses, such as WiFi. “We have been following the activities in the U.S. on the possibility of sharing the 5850-5925 Mhz frequency band between Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), (DSRC) and unlicensed WiFi use (extension of the 5.8 Ghz WiFi),” Parmer said. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Infrastructure, spectrum among obstacles for connected cars

News | July 12, 2016

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Infrastructure, spectrum among obstacles for connected cars

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