Project proves: Networked vehicle applications need fast computer access
The aim of the project was to gain insights into the suitability of MEC for connectd driving, with particular emphasis on technology, network architecture and cost-effectiveness. On the A9 (The Autobahn between Munich and Nuremberg), the project partners tested various specific applications such as an emergency warning, traffic jam warning, an assistant for variable speed limits and high-definition road maps.
“Multi-Access Edge Computing will be a very important communication technology for the networked vehicle in the future,” sums up Ronald Hain, Head of Backend Development at Continental. “Closing the gap between local real-time applications and cloud services will enable us to improve automated driving and make vehicles work together. In addition, local services can effectively leverage the data rate of LTE or 5G networks.”
Deutsche Telekom set up a project-specific infrastructure with two spatially separated MEC resources in the test area on the A9. The test environment also used the existing LTE network and was operated for 12 months to enable extensive test drives. This provided a unique opportunity to analyze the MEC technology under real conditions: on a public road and in a commercial mobile network with many parallel users.
“The project results confirm the performance of edge computing in 4G networks and the suitability of this technology for automotive applications requiring low latency and extremely high reliability,” explains Alexander Lautz, Senior Vice President 5G at Deutsche Telekom. He announced that he would continue working with partners in the automotive sector to further develop the technology and translate it into solutions for networked and automated driving.
In the project, hybrid communication units from Fraunhofer ESK enabled time-critical applications for networked vehicles with established, standardized protocols and message formats. A highly efficient distributed messaging service (GeoService) implemented on the Multi-Access Edge node provided low-latency connectivity between vehicles and a direct connection to localized services. In combination with adaptive network algorithms from Fraunhofer ESK, which select the most suitable communication path in real time, the complementary strengths of different technologies can be used to provide an optimized Quality of Service (QoS) for each application and context.
“This project gave us the opportunity to evaluate our ETSI ITS-compliant hybrid solution in a commercial mobile network and to optimize it through 5G taking into account new possibilities,” explains Karsten Roscher, research associate at Fraunhofer ESK. “While the edge cloud improved end-to-end latency by more than 20 ms, the 4G wireless access network remains a limiting factor for more sophisticated future services. But we’re convinced that the combination of Edge Cloud and 5G will create completely new networked and distributed applications.”
MHP provided insights into the value of MEC for networked driving from a business perspective. The consultancy identified critical success factors for potential commercial ecosystems based on the new technology. The economic opportunities opened up by MEC for the automotive industry are unclear on the one hand and promising on the other. Several possible fields of action were identified in the project. In addition to standardisation and a clear value proposition for the commitment of each individual investor, cooperation and partnerships are seen as crucial for future development.
Olaf Kleindienst, Partner at MHP, comments: “Everyone talks about the networked car and in a way the networked car already exists. But the fully networked car still has a lot to do and many questions still have to be answered. The fully networked car is a new environment for the automotive industry and the large, established players have to reinvent themselves to a large extent, even with new business models. We see projects such as Car2MEC as an excellent opportunity to think ahead, to discuss questions about this new environment at an early stage and to shed light on the topic from different perspectives.”
Nokia’s Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) technology brings cloud computing resources closer to the road, enabling faster response times (latency) on the network compared to centralized cloud architectures. This is important for applications such as emergency or congestion alerting, where milliseconds can make a big difference. Tests have confirmed that time-critical information in an LTE network with MEC-based edge cloud can be transferred from one vehicle to another in less than 30ms. The performance of latency-critical and data-intensive applications such as HD positioning and HD cards also improved significantly when supported by an edge cloud infrastructure.
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