Cisco and Verizon announced their collaboration on a successful proof of concept demo in Las Vegas, showing that cellular and mobile edge compute (MEC) technology can enable autonomous driving solutions without the use of costly physical roadside units to extend radio signals.
The result, Verizon claims, paves a “simpler and more efficient route” to powering applications such as autonomous/unmanned last-mile delivery bots and robotaxis in cities like Las Vegas, where public MEC technologies exist. Additionally, the carrier cites its tests as showing how cities and roadway operators could create safer roads with C-V2X applications (C-V2X refers to a vehicle’s ability to communicate with other vehicles and connected infrastructure surrounding it). Those improvements include: pedestrian protection, emergency and transit vehicle pre-emption, on and off-ramp protection (e.g., when a loaded truck needs autonomous guidance to merge or brake safely), and potentially others that involve vehicles approaching intersections with traffic signals.
While autonomous features in connected vehicles have always relied on roadside radios to extend the signals vehicles use for low-latency communication with each other and surrounding connected infrastructure, the Cisco and Verizon tests show evidence that Verizon’s LTE network and public 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength, together with Cisco Catalyst IR1101 routers in connected infrastructure, can meet the latency thresholds required for autonomous driving applications. The tests indicate this may replace the costly roadside radios previously required to meet those needs.
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