5G Based Remote Control of Autonomous Vehicle

The era of fully autonomous vehicle is still miles away from the reality. It is quite challenging to claim a completely automated driverless vehicle that is able to maneuver on its own in any environmental situations because of the numerous safety and algorithmic limitations. In order to bridge this significant gap, there is a need of technology that allows a vehicle to be managed without the driver being required to be present inside the vehicle. The remote-control capabilities will increase safety as it will be monitored and controlled by the remote driver from a distance rather than relying on in-vehicle algorithms. This paper demonstrates the messaging service based on the RabbitMQ message broker that is used here to deliver control signals from a distant control room to the vehicle and a web-based video streaming application constructed using WebRTC for low latency real time video streaming. A total of 160 observations were considered throughout the trial run, and it was discovered that while the vehicle is maintained in the speed range of 30 to 40 kmph, the average end-to-end overall latency via 5G cellular network was within 270 ms. The car was almost perfectly executing the steering, braking, and gear signals in accordance with the remote driver’s instruction. Overall, the configuration showed that the remote-control room and the vehicle were able to communicate well, enabling a smooth transition from manual to remote driving. The test findings provide the confidence to apply the proposed architecture to achieve vehicle teleoperation.