The next generation of smart highway technology architecture: a vehicle-road collaboration solution based on 5G+MEC+V2X

Zoss Automotive Research Institute released the "2022 Roadside Edge Computing Industry Research Report".

Roadside edge computing policies and standards have been implemented one after another, and the industry is developing rapidly

In April 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission clarified the scope of "new infrastructure" for the first time, including new infrastructure such as cloud computing and intelligent computing centers; in February 2021, the Ministry of Transport's "National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline" pointed out that it is necessary to promote the digitalization and networking of transportation infrastructure, comprehensively deploy traffic perception systems, and promote the application of autonomous driving and vehicle-road collaboration.

Smart Transportation Industry Policy

Source: 2022 Roadside Edge Computing Industry Research Report

Policies have promoted the steady development of the smart transportation industry, gradually transitioning from the information stage to the networking stage, and finally developing into intelligent highways, relying on powerful roadside perception technology, edge computing technology, network communication technology, and cloud control technology to support highly efficient fully autonomous driving.

In addition to policy promotion, standards related to roadside edge computing are also gradually being improved:

In December 2021, the draft opinion on the "Smart Road Edge Computing Gateway Communication Interface Standard" was released. The standard stipulates the communication interface requirements for the smart road edge computing gateway's south-bound heterogeneous device access and north-bound unified access platform.

In March 2022, the group standard "General Technical Conditions for Holographic Collection System of Traffic Information at Road Intersections" jointly compiled by Huawei, Beijing Tumeng Technology, Beijing Zhongsoft Zhengtong, Shenzhen Traffic Police Bureau, and Changzhou Traffic Police Detachment was officially implemented. The standard points out that edge computing units should be uniformly deployed at intersections to manage and calculate video images and structured data collected from all directions to form integrated information at the intersection and upload it to the business application platform.

Source: "General Technical Requirements for Holographic Traffic Information Collection System at Road Intersections"

On the basis of the standardized construction of edge cloud, the standardized construction of the collaboration between urban central cloud and edge cloud will be further improved in the future to realize the interoperability of edge cloud devices, facilitate unified large-scale management, and promote the promotion of "end-edge-cloud" collaborative applications.

Under the new technology architecture of smart highways, the application scenarios of "edge computing" are gradually enriched

Smart transportation is transforming from informatization to intelligent networking. The construction of smart highways is an important part of smart transportation. At present, more than 40 smart highways have been renovated and constructed in more than 20 provinces across the country, and "cloud-network-edge-end" has gradually become the new generation of smart highway technology architecture. In the new technology architecture, the role of "edge" has become more and more prominent, and the application scenarios are becoming more and more extensive.

Next-generation technology architecture for smart highways

Source: China Communications Construction

Edge devices have certain computing capabilities, which can realize the sinking of computing power on the roadside and reduce the pressure of cloud computing. In addition, edge computing can reduce the transmission time of data in the network, simplify the network structure, and realize accurate perception of traffic conditions. Therefore, edge computing has obvious advantages in the construction of smart roads, especially in the Internet of Vehicles environment.

1) Application of edge computing in vehicle-road collaboration

From the three delivery modes of edge computing, 5G MEC edge computing is most suitable for application in the field of smart transportation. After introducing MEC edge computing into vehicle-road collaboration, these edge computing devices can directly receive localized data in real time from the vehicle-mounted terminal and roadside sensors, analyze it, and transmit the analysis results to other connected vehicles in the vicinity with extremely low latency. The whole process can be completed in milliseconds. The new generation of vehicle-road collaboration technology architecture integrates MEC with C-V2X, 5G and other applications, which can significantly enhance end-to-end communication capabilities and solve the construction complexity and cost problems caused by wired backhaul of roadside data. In addition, when the penetration rate of V2X equipment is not high enough, N2V services can be provided to ordinary vehicles without OBU installed through 4G/5G networks, further accelerating the implementation and promotion of vehicle-road collaboration.

Vehicle-road collaboration solution based on 5G+MEC+V2X

Source: China Unicom

2) Application of edge computing in high-precision maps

The use of high-precision maps is conducive to the implementation of L4/L5 level autonomous driving, but the application of high-precision maps currently faces some difficulties, such as the realization of real-time dynamic updates. The introduction of MEC can better solve these problems. By carrying high-precision maps on MEC, dynamic maps can be quickly distributed. Combined with 5G network slicing technology, vehicles can obtain high-precision map information in real time and greatly save the storage space of the vehicle computer.

Source: Huawei

3) Application of edge computing in smart parks

After the introduction of edge computing in the smart park, it can not only sense, monitor, analyze, control, and integrate the resources of each key link of the park, but also realize the vehicle-road collaboration within the park. The Shougang Winter Olympics Park has built a global traffic situation perception vehicle-road collaboration system based on 5G+C-V2X, and deployed cameras, radars and other perception equipment, docking traffic lights and other intelligent equipment on both sides of the main roads and key intersections in the park, so as to realize the collection of global traffic road conditions information. The roadside MEC deploys a multi-source heterogeneous fusion perception algorithm based on perception, and carries out algorithm development and optimization for the Winter Olympics scene, which can realize traffic video detection and tracking in heavy snow, fog and other weather conditions.

Source: Internet

4) Application of edge computing in high-speed scenarios

At the entrance of highway ramps, traffic accidents are prone to occur when vehicles merge. By deploying cameras, radars and other intelligent sensing devices at the gate to obtain the vehicle's movement trajectory and traffic flow information, and then using the deployed MEC equipment to perform perception fusion and vehicle trajectory prediction, and finally distributing the prediction results to connected vehicles, functions such as merging area collision warning, merging area ramp control, lane change assistance, and vehicle speed guidance can be realized.

Gateway Edge Device Deployment

Source: China International Engineering Consulting Corporation

The industry has huge derivative value, and companies are competing to make layouts

With the large-scale construction of smart roads, more and more companies are deploying edge computing, including companies in chips, computing platforms, software, communications, cloud services, etc., which are actively exploring the roadside edge computing market. Among them, cloud service providers rely on their own cloud computing technology advantages to gradually sink cloud computing technology to the edge side. For example, domestic giants such as BAT have begun to sink computing capabilities to the edge side since 2018 and have launched corresponding edge computing products. In terms of product layout, the three major operators have comprehensively deployed edge computing, cloud control platforms, and communication technologies to open up the edge computing-network communication-cloud control link; Internet companies such as Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, and some traditional roadside equipment suppliers, in addition to deploying edge computing units, also deploy roadside perception units to form a complete roadside perception-computing system solution.

Product layout of some roadside edge computing suppliers

Source: 2022 Roadside Edge Computing Industry Research Report

Huawei: The roadside perception equipment and ITS800 edge computing nodes used in the holographic intersection solution are all developed by Huawei. At present, Huawei has formed a complete smart road industry chain ecosystem, with full-chain R&D and production capabilities from chips, edge computing, roadside perception to cloud platforms. The Kunpeng + openEuler soft and hard collaborative edge computing platform uses Huawei's self-developed Kunpeng 920 processor, TaiShan200 edge server (model 2280E) and openEuler server operating system. Huawei's edge computing unit has the characteristics of algorithm cloud-edge iterative upgrades, real-time analysis and generation of road condition structured data, and access to V2X real-time business data.

Alibaba Cloud: In 2021, it launched the "new cloud-edge integrated station", including Neuro edge computing terminals, edge computing servers, traffic big data all-in-one machines, and vehicle-road collaborative smart car screens. These products can significantly reduce the cost of smart road projects and increase investment returns. Among them, the Neuro edge computing terminal is small in size, but has more functions and supports cloud management. Currently, Alibaba Cloud has deployed Neuro edge computing terminals on Chengdu Second Ring Expressway and Chengyi Expressway. By deploying poles at intervals of 800 meters, it reduces equipment deployment and greatly saves construction costs.