Qualcomm: 5G injects a "boost" into autonomous driving, and the world will change again

Research shows that by 2035, 5G-related products and services will generate a cumulative value of $12.3 trillion, of which about 19.6% will be related to the automotive industry. This proportion highlights the profound impact that 5G technology will have on the automotive industry. 5G has great potential in transforming and reshaping business practices, and will bring significant improvements in production efficiency. 5G will bring changes to automobiles, but it will also put forward new requirements for technology companies involved and bring them more challenges.

Regarding the impact of 5G on automobiles, Yifei.com invited Dr. Li Yan, senior director of technical standards at Qualcomm Technologies, to participate in the discussion on the theme of "Automobiles are changing because of 5G".

Dr. Yan Li, Senior Director, Technical Standards, Qualcomm Technologies

Qualcomm has achieved a $5 billion "report card" in the automotive field.
Qualcomm is committed to the invention of mobile basic technology, always taking research and development as the first step, constantly breaking the boundaries of mobile technology, and fundamentally changing the way the world connects, calculates and communicates. Over the past 30 years, Qualcomm's inventions have connected mobile phones to the Internet and billions of people around the world; and 5G is like a key that will open a new era of intelligent interconnection of all things. 5G is expected to become a universal technology that will not only change people's lives, but also empower more vertical industries including automobiles, and promote social and economic development.

Dr. Li Yan believes that with the commercialization of 5G, the low latency and high speed characteristics also make 5G an ideal technology for vehicle-to-everything ( V2X ) communication. V2X covers a full range of communication functions, including vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-network (V2N), vehicle-to-public transportation and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). 5G will be the foundation of automotive connectivity and an important source of power to promote autonomous driving; under the development trend of autonomy and connectivity, 5G will bring challenges and opportunities to the automotive industry.

Users' impression of Qualcomm is that it is a mobile phone chip provider. Dr. Li Yan explained, "In fact, in addition to being a mobile phone chip provider, Qualcomm is also the world's number one supplier of in-vehicle information processing and automotive Bluetooth solutions. From the sales perspective, Qualcomm won 25 new in-vehicle information processing and infotainment designs in fiscal 2017, and 14 global automakers have chosen the Snapdragon automotive infotainment platform. As of July 2018, Qualcomm's cumulative total product orders for infotainment and in-vehicle information processing designs have reached US$5 billion; in January 2018, this figure was only US$3 billion. It can be seen that Qualcomm has quickly gained widespread praise and high recognition from automotive industry customers and partners with its outstanding design and delivery capabilities."

The Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G platforms are unveiled to improve the safety of automobiles and transportation infrastructure
. For automotive-grade products, passing vehicle regulations is critical. After the C-V2X standard was completed in June 2017, Qualcomm released the first C-V2X commercial solution based on the 3GPP Release 14 specification for PC5 direct communication in September - the Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X chipset.

Dr. Li Yan told the reporter of Yifei.com that this chipset is built on our leading edge in automotive technology, reflecting our continued commitment to designing and providing advanced solutions for increasingly safe, connected and automated vehicles. From the standard determination in 2017 to June 2018, Qualcomm has been using the 9150 C-V2X chipset to work with the industry to develop all test specifications and test methods. This is the industry's earliest completed and announced chip, and the first chip to participate in GCF (Global Certification Forum) testing. The 9150 C-V2X chipset solution can extend the direct communication range, improve reliability and reduce latency in crowded road environments. Following the clear direction of the 3GPP specification to evolve to 5G New Radio (5G NR), we will continue to invest in the development of the C-V2X product roadmap to provide new and complementary features.

In addition, at this year's MWC, Qualcomm launched the new Snapdragon Automotive 4G Platform and Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform for the next generation of cars, helping to drive connected cars into the 5G era. By providing low-latency multi-gigabit transmission speeds, lane-level navigation accuracy, and a complete integrated C-V2X solution, the Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G platforms will improve the safety of cars and transportation infrastructure - each of which is a key requirement for car safety, convoy formation, autonomous driving, and always-connected driving experiences.

Qualcomm has been working closely with leading Chinese automakers. In November 2018, Qualcomm and leading automakers held the world's first large-scale multi-party LTE-V2X interoperability application demonstration event in Shanghai during the China Society of Automotive Engineers Annual Conference and Exhibition. Some of the demonstrated vehicles were equipped with the Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X chipset solution to support C-V2X technology, demonstrating the many benefits of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications.

At this year's CES, Audi, Ducati and Ford also used the C-V2X solution based on the Qualcomm 9150 C-V2X chipset to conduct a live interactive demonstration of a cooperative intersection use case, showing how vehicles use C-V2X to negotiate the right of way when entering a four-way intersection without a signal. By strengthening multi-party collaboration, Qualcomm and its partners are working together to accelerate the commercial deployment of C-V2X. This is a new chapter in our long-term cooperation, highlighting our common goal of fully realizing the full potential of C-V2X as the world's next-generation automotive connectivity, safety and autonomy solution.

Integrate various capabilities to create an excellent in-car mobile experience.
One of the problems facing the automotive industry today is how to compete with the drivers and passengers' mobile phones for the 1-2 hours of infotainment time during driving every day. While driving the vehicle, the driver must focus on the front and the surroundings, not the mobile phone screen. It is also important to let the driver and passengers focus on the car, because once the driver's attention is distracted by the mobile phone screen, the accident rate will soar. Regarding Qualcomm's advantages, Dr. Li Yan introduced that we have accumulated a lot of technical reserves, business development capabilities, and practical experience in the entire mobile industry over the past 30 years. We can help customers in the automotive industry cope with the important changes in today's Internet of Vehicles. We know how to create a mobile environment, and we can share these experiences with customers and partners in the automotive industry to help them build a mobile ecosystem for cars.

We hope to use new communication technologies to help drivers focus on driving, provide safer and more convenient information processing and infotainment functions, provide more warnings and prompts to avoid accidents as much as possible, and reduce the mortality rate through faster rescue even if an accident occurs. Qualcomm has leading technologies in artificial intelligence and Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, and 5G connectivity, as well as C-V2X. Qualcomm can integrate all these capabilities and work with automakers to provide drivers and passengers with a more excellent in-car mobile experience.

During CES 2019, Qualcomm launched the third-generation Snapdragon Digital Cockpit Platform, which supports contextual safety experiences for intelligent driving assistance systems, including in-car monitoring and ultra-high-definition surround view monitoring. As the first series of scalable platforms announced by the automotive industry to support artificial intelligence, the third-generation Snapdragon Automotive Digital Cockpit Platform is designed to transform the in-car experience and meet the needs of the next generation of advanced features for higher levels of computing and intelligence, including highly intuitive AI experiences for in-car virtual assistants, natural interactions between cars and drivers, and a variety of contextual safety use cases, helping automakers create leading performance and outstanding personalized experiences.

With the commercial use of 5G, V2V and V2X communications will also bring some help in safety. For example, it can reduce collision accidents because V2V and V2X communications can improve the perception ability of vehicles beyond the line of sight. Perception ability is very important for safe driving. By perceiving the surrounding road participants and obstacles, the vehicle and the driver can obtain important information such as "where I am, what is around me, and whether I am in danger". Through the combination of 5G and AI, with the help of AI's perception ability, it is possible to analyze the surrounding scenes, provide early warnings to drivers or take over in emergencies, and reduce the occurrence of accidents. Traditional autonomous driving vehicle perception methods are often to perceive surrounding objects by installing multiple advanced sensors, including cameras, radars, and even lidars. However, these expensive sensors can only detect objects within the line of sight and are also sensitive to climatic conditions. For example, cameras and lidars will fail in foggy weather. By using V2V vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology, the vehicle's perception range can be expanded beyond the line of sight, such as the positions of several vehicles in front and behind, and even their emergency braking status information, so that the road conditions can be judged in advance and avoidance measures can be taken as early as possible to avoid rear-end collisions.