Exploring 5G for Vehicular Networks

The ongoing revolution in wireless communications with the advent of 5G has opened plethora of opportunities for the applications demanding high capacity, low-latency, high reliability and security. 5G is expected to cater to the diverse and stringent requirements of the wireless applications owing to better manageability, scalability, privacy, security and efficiency offered by it in comparison to earlier frameworks. Vehicular Adhoc Networks (VANETs) for intelligent transportation systems, is one such application which will be benefitted the most due to its diverse requirements for the types of applications ranging from safety, comfort to commercial. We have presented our perspective on the impact of basic building blocks of 5G framework in VANETs. Firstly, the application specific requirements of VANETs have been detailed. The existing VANET standard fulfilling these requirements is listed along with its limitations. Secondly, the features and key benefits of 5G in context to VANETs have been presented. Finally, the basic building blocks of 5G including device to device technology and edge-slicing are explored in VANETs and the associated challenges are highlighted.