The aim is to enhance connected infotainment functions and build the foundation for cellular based vehicle-to-everything (V2X) wireless communications systems.
“By combining Continental’s more than 20 years of automotive connectivity know-how with NTT DOCOMO’s leading 5G expertise, we will be ready to reap the benefits of the new technology once it is fully available from around 2022”, said Johann Hiebl, head of Continental’s Business Unit Infotainment & Connectivity.
“Connecting vehicles is at the top of our agenda but to fully exploit the benefits of the connected vehicle we need the bandwidth, speed and fast response times of tomorrow’s cellular networks.”
The 5G technology targets to provide up to a million connections per square kilometre, allowing for many more devices than 4G.
“The new cellular standard 5G will be able to connect vehicles with other road users and the infrastructure in ways beyond your imagination”, Gee said.
“With a targeted 10Gbits/s for downlink speeds and reduced latency times which may be as low as 1ms in a wireless link, new use cases and services – including high density platooning, HD live map updates, and sensor sharing – are becoming within reach.
According to the companies, once latency times are significantly reduced, wireless communication between cars, with the infrastructure and with other road users can improve the data basis for driver assistance and automated driving.
“To make all this possible we need to consider frequency and data propagation details now,” Gee said. “That is why our current roadmap includes research into antenna and questions such as which frequencies are most suitable for moving vehicles.”