Small-Scale Testbed for Evaluating C-V2X Applications on 5G Cellular Networks

In this work, we present a small-scale testbed for evaluating the real-life performance of cellular V2X (C-V2X) applications on 5G cellular networks. Despite the growing interest and rapid technology development for V2X applications, researchers still struggle to prototype V2X applications with real wireless networks, hardware, and software in the loop in a controlled environment. To help alleviate this challenge, we present a testbed designed to accelerate development and evaluation of C-V2X applications on 5G cellular networks. By including a small-scale vehicle platform into the testbed design, we significantly reduce the time and effort required to test new C-V2X applications on 5G cellular networks. With a focus around the integration of small-scale vehicle platforms, we detail the design decisions behind the full software and hardware setup of commonly needed intelligent transport system agents (e.g. sensors, servers, vehicles). Moreover, to showcase the testbed’s capability to produce industrially-relevant, real world performance evaluations, we present an evaluation of a simple test case inspired from shared situational awareness. Finally, we discuss the upcoming use of the testbed for evaluating 5G cellular network-based shared situational awareness and other C-V2X applications.

I. Introduction

Over the recent years, the interest in exploring the use of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication has grown immensely. Due to factors like unprotected road-users and occlusions, there are complex traffic scenarios that are difficult for automated vehicles to resolve individually. To safely and efficiently handle these scenarios, automated vehicles need to communicate with each other, infrastructure, and central servers. This has led to the development of various Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) that utilize wireless technologies including different varieties of dedicated short-range, direct communication, 4G, and 5G for V2X communication to enhance traffic safety and improve road throughput [1]. Vehicles that utilize V2X communication to enhance their automation are referred to as connected and automated vehicles (CAV). Moreover, throughout this work, we refer to the collection of ITS services that leverage V2X communication as V2X applications.