Driving down the highway with 5G
The automotive industry in India has embarked on a journey of rapid digitalisation. Connected vehicles is one of the heavily focused areas for innovation. I have been a keen observer of the automotive connected space for over a decade. I was closely associated with it through IoT Products & services. Vi has been a market leader in the Connected Automotive space with a share of over 90% in both Passenger Vehicle (PV) and Commercial Vehicle (CV) deployments.
As per the estimates by Ericsson on 5G for business, the Automotive industry has a 12% share in revenue potential with a 71% CAGR spanning over a decade. Within the total service provider opportunity pie of 700 bn USD by 2030, India is estimated to hold a 17 bn USD 5G-enabled B2B opportunity.
5G opens up a new realm of possibilities for the automotive industry. High speed, low latency, and huge network capacity (read massive density) work as favourable ‘network’ conditions for further innovation in connected vehicle space.
Deloitte’s research on connected cars in India shows that consumers would favourably reward innovative features built on the dimensions of V2V, V2I, and V2X. Service areas such as Safety and security, Navigation, Infotainment, Convenience, Maintenance, Remote management are prominent considerations for OEMs. Many of these are relevant for the CV segment too.
In Vi 5G trials, along with an automotive partner, we focused on two specific real-world use cases — Safety through Driver Monitoring System and Infotainment-on-the-go.
1. Driver Monitoring System
A bit of analysis on Safety on Indian roads, to start with.
I am distilling the relevant insights for this topic, from an otherwise detailed report on the current condition of road safety in India and comparison with the rest of the world
- 19% of accidents take place between 6 PM to 9 PM
- The pie-chart on accident cause shows that over-speeding and dangerous/reckless driving contribute 83% of the time to the accidents.
- India is one of the busiest countries in the world in terms of road traffic. With over 6 million kilometers of roads and a vehicle density of ~47 ( vehicles per km of road), Roads carry almost 90 percent of the country’s passenger traffic and about 65 percent of the goods.
- The growing road infrastructure, increase in vehicles, and increased congestion thereof has turned, road safety into a factor of utmost importance for both the authorities and citizens.
In this context, it is easy to put up an argument that road rage and driving fatigue are commonplace. The behaviour of drivers has a considerable impact on road safety.
Imagine being able to monitor drivers’ alertness, levels of fatigue, driving behaviour, and other such aspects on a near real-time basis! The data on such incidents and the video feed can help both the authorities and the drivers themselves to prevent an unwanted incident!
With 5G, automotive OEMs can leverage uRLLC, high throughput speeds (upload and download), and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) infrastructure to design such critical features and improve road safety.
Vi 5G trials use case of Driver Monitoring System.
- Enabled by an HD camera in the vehicle facing the driver, the high-definition video footage is sent over a 5G trial network to the edge.
- Video analytics are processed at the edge to monitor and assess driver conditions in real-time.
- In case of negative events e.g., driver lapsing into sleep, alerts are relayed in real-time over 5G trials network to a central monitoring system and the car.
- An alarm is triggered in the car to get the driver back to an alert state. Alert is also sent to Command and Control station. Other safety instructions too could be made possible.
While we have successfully demonstrated this in a car, it is possible to leverage this solution across commercial vehicles too. This could benefit market segments such as chauffeur-driven car owners, taxi operators, and fleet owners.
1. Infotainment-on-the-go
Entertainment OTT in the rear seat of the car — that’s the second automotive real-world use we demonstrated during 5G trials. The scenarios of long drives or traffic snarls, our ever-increasing appetite for binge-watching, and the scouting for discerning live video content, intersect beautifully in this use case.
Consumer market research clearly shows that consumers value the features which enhance the ride experience, in both owned and shared cars. Also, they are willing to spend more to access these features. OEMs are investing in leveraging the power of advanced networks such as 5G to deliver cutting-edge features.
In the trial, the HD OTT content was streamed inside the car on the 5G trial network. The 5G trial network powered the use case with low latency, high download throughput speeds, and content at the MEC edge. The uninterrupted streaming made it a delightful ride experience.
In one of my favourite sports movies Ford Vs. Ferrari, these are a few memorable lines by Carroll Shelby, “There’s a point at 7,000 RPM… where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless. Just disappears. And all that’s left is a body moving through space and time. 7,000 RPM. That’s where you meet it. You feel it coming. It creeps up on you, close in your ear. Asks you a question. Who are you?”
In the future, the question the vehicle poses could be “Are you driving safe enough?”
Put on your seat belts. Drive fast and drive safe with 5G.
#5GForABetterTomorrow @ViBusinessIndia
(The article is second in the series on Vi 5G trials. Go on to read the curtain-raiser on 5G)
[1] Source: Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, https://morth.nic.in/sites/default/files/RA_Uploading.pdf | ^ data for 2020 based on the news article, #Vehicles kept same as 2019 due to lack of official estimates yet
[2] (Sources: https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/Chapter-1A-Traffic-Accidents_2019.pdf, https://morth.nic.in/road-accident-in-india, https://morth.nic.in/sites/default/files/RA_Uploading.pdf, https://www.statista.com/topics/5982/road-accidents-in-india/ )