Having been stuck at home for half a month, I am extremely eager for the arrival of 5G...

During the epidemic, everyone was too bored at home, and it was time for jokers to appear again. Many nonsensical memes were circulated N times in Weibo and WeChat groups. Among them, the one that impressed me the most was Below:

Although we must pay attention to protection in the face of the epidemic, the fear of being infected because "5G speed spreads too fast" is really dumbfounding. But then again, "5G" has definitely been a hot word in the past two years. Many friends have already tried it and can't help but show off the amazing network speed.

Especially when you are at home and your parents or even your neighbors are trying to slow down your Internet speed, this is the moment when you most want to popularize the 5G era.

Everyone has the impression that 5G is just for the communications industry and the mobile phone industry. However, as a new energy vehicle editor, I would like to say here that in fact, 5G is also inseparable from our smart cars: car companies are The high profile of 5G layout is no less than that of mobile phone manufacturers, and major mainstream car companies have already entered the battlefield.

As early as September 2016, the 5GAA cross-industry cooperation alliance was jointly initiated by automobile manufacturers, chip manufacturers and communications companies, and is committed to exploring the role of 5G in Internet of Vehicles communication solutions. Comprehensive cooperation, the founding members are Audi, BMW, Daimler, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Nokia and Qualcomm.

In addition to traditional car companies and suppliers, the new car-making forces of our own brands have always been labeled by intelligence, and they have not been left behind in this regard: WM plans to be launched at the end of 2020 A new SUV model. No specific information about the car is known yet, but it is confirmed that it will be equipped with new 5G technology. It is reported that this mysterious SUV will be put into production at WM's Hubei Xinghui production base, with a target production capacity of 300,000 units per year.

Of course, there are also cross-industry representatives who want to enter the automotive industry: at the previous Baidu AI Developer Conference, Baidu announced the Apollo 5.0 version, and also joined hands with Geely Automobile to launch the integrated Xiaodu vehicle interactive system GKUI19 system.

Huawei has launched its own 5G+C-V2X in-vehicle communication solution. It has already reached cooperation with SAIC, Audi, Volvo and other manufacturers. Perhaps 5G cars equipped with "Huawei core" will soon be equipped with Let's meet.

At present, various companies are trying to seize the commanding heights of 5G, so how significant is 5G for future travel? Let's have a good chat today.

The development of the Internet of Vehicles is inseparable from 5G speed

Is 5G important? Very important, far more important than we think.

If 1G is for making phone calls, 2G is for chatting on QQ, 3G is for browsing Weibo, and 4G is for playing TikTok, then what is 5G? It is the comprehensive Internet of Things, machine automation, AI artificial intelligence, AR virtual reality, fully autonomous driving, and smart city models.

Although many people think that 5G is just for mobile phone sets and has nothing to do with our cars, in fact, Abdurazak Mudesir, Vice President of Huawei’s European 5G Marketing Department, said: “5G was originally developed by communications Operator-driven, but now the role has changed, and the driver has become the industries most likely to benefit from the Internet of Things, such as autonomous driving, energy and agriculture.”

The Internet of Vehicles is an important representative of the Internet of Things. When it comes to this, everyone may not have a deep understanding of it. They only have a vague impression - the Internet of Vehicles.

But in fact, the Internet of Vehicles refers to electronic components such as GPS positioning, RFID identification, sensors, cameras and image processing integrated in the car, in accordance with the agreed communication protocols and data interaction standards, in V2V, A large system network for wireless communication and information exchange between V2R and V2I.

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers' definition of vehicles equipped with V2X functions, it is equipped with advanced on-board sensors, controllers, actuators and other devices, and integrates modern communication and network technologies to realize vehicle-to-X (People, vehicles, roads, background, etc.) exchange and enjoyment of intelligent information, with complex environmental perception, intelligent decision-making, collaborative control and execution functions, can achieve safety, comfort, energy saving, efficient driving, and can ultimately be replaced A new generation of cars that are operated by humans.

The rapid transmission of information is fundamental to the safe and efficient operation of V2X.

Here is an example of the speed advantage of 5G: In the 5G era, network latency will be reduced to less than 10ms, and extremely low latency can ensure faster V2X communication. So how low is 10ms latency? According to research, when pain is transmitted from the fingertips to the brainstem (that is, the pain is transmitted about 1m), it takes 29 to 200ms, which means that the "response" of the 5G network is faster than the human pain nerve.

Imagine when you are driving on the road and face an emergency and need to avoid danger. Due to the rapid response of 5G, it is very possible to do it much faster than manual driving.

5G can break through the bottleneck of autonomous driving

In other words, our current mainstream autonomous driving systems such as Google, Tesla, and Mobileye are all based on sensors, radars, and cameras. With input of information and decision-making through artificial intelligence technology, the bicycle itself can drive autonomously to a certain extent.

However, this kind of bicycle automatic driving system itself also has great limitations: in bad weather such as night, rain, snow, fog, etc., at intersections, corners and other scenes, radar and cameras cannot detect Invisible, unclear, and inaccurate, the effect of autonomous driving will be greatly reduced in extreme environments and may even cause accidents.

If we continue to dig deeper and develop sensors with stronger performance for these scenarios, even if it can improve safety and compatibility of scenarios, the cost may be too high for consumers to bear.

The above-mentioned Internet of Vehicles V2X combined with 5G high speed can break through this bottleneck: essentially, V2X can be regarded as a long-distance "sensor" that communicates with surrounding vehicles, roads, and infrastructure. Communication, obtaining more information than a bicycle can obtain, greatly enhancing the perception of the surrounding environment.

The ultra-large bandwidth and ultra-low latency characteristics of the 5G network itself can collect and transmit more and more accurate environmental information in real time, and use cloud computing power to make autonomous driving decisions for the vehicle itself.

Therefore, "V2X + 5G" is a necessary and value-added technology in realizing vehicle autonomous driving scenarios. Even if the vehicle itself can achieve partial autonomous driving, the performance can still be further improved through the Internet of Vehicles technology. It can also reduce the cost of deploying sensors on bicycles and reduce reliance on high-precision sensors.

On top of entertainment experience? Welcome to 5G smart cockpit?

If the degree of autonomous driving is further upgraded, our driving tasks will naturally be alleviated: So what can we use our freed hands for?

Don’t think wrongly, what the editor wants to say is the development of smart cockpits. At this time, the in-car entertainment system is no longer limited to listening to music and watching videos, but is aimed at satisfying people’s life and work in an all-round way. At the 2019 Shanghai Auto Show, Roewe's "5G zero-screen smart cockpit" gave a good answer:

Through a deep understanding of the future application of 5G technology, Unlimited content is displayed at any desired location or material, achieving information coverage in any corner of the entire cabin, creating an immersive interactive experience for users in the entire cabin that meets the needs of the 5G era.

Cooperating with the conversion of different scene modes, the car can truly transform from a "people-carrying tool" into a "mobile space", capable of realizing various scenarios such as meetings, education, games, leisure, meditation, etc.

The realization of these functions is inseparable from the foundation laid by 5G rollout.

Editor’s summary

As the wave of 5G commercialization is about to sweep across, major car companies and technology companies are actively deploying, but the best application scenarios for 5G in cars are At present, it is still V2X and autonomous driving; as for the smart cockpit, it is more like the icing on the cake after the success of autonomous driving.

But no matter what, with the laying of 5G networks, the automobile industry is expected to undergo earth-shaking changes in recent years, and the cooperation and competition among major manufacturers will become increasingly fierce. As consumers, we Just sit back and wait for the scientific and technological achievements.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.