V2X for Road Vehicle Safety

Taking forward the impact of V2X on providing ease of travel, yet another discussion looked at its impact on road safety and security. While the technologies that have been proposed around V2X offer an intervention, they may not completely solve the problem. The experts who participated in the discussion included Uday Dodla, Senior Director, Automotive Business Development, Qualcomm India Pvt Ltd; Dr. P.S.M. Tripathi, Dy. WA (Satellite and Security), Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications; Pranav Singh, Expert Standards & Specifications, SET R&D, IDEMIA; Vinamra Gupta, General Manager, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.

Cellular V2X is now considered an essential component for creating a safe environment for road users. While a lot of work has been done at the technology level, the same cannot be said of implementation. Indian traffic conditions and road users are different from those in developed countries, being far less disciplined and less homogenous towards road usage. Creating solutions adapting to the needs of local users is the need of the hour and V2X has good potential to make Indian roads safer.

With collective efforts from everybody in the government, industry and OEMs along with technology players like ourselves, we hope to see safer roads, safer cars and less lives lost in India and the world with V2X.

Uday Dodla, Qualcomm India Pvt Ltd

Government initiative on spectrum allocation

Technology and spectrum are two essentials for an intelligent transportation system. There are currently two technologies available, DSRC and CV2X. Spectrum, without which technology cannot work, can be split into two parts, one for ITS and V2X systems and the second for automotive radars and sensors fitted in vehicles. The 5.9 GHz spectrum starts from 5850 to 5925 MHz. This 75 MHz spectrum is basically dedicated for the ITS and V2X systems, but instead of the complete 75 MHz, the government has allocated a partial 50 MHz spectrum starting from 5.75 to 5.25. Spectra for radars and sensors in vehicles are at 24 GHz and at 77 GHz. The 24.05 to 24.25 GHz is a 200MHz spectrum which has been delicensed for automotive radar as also 1GHz from 76 to 77. Most countries have made the entire spectrum from 76 to 81 GHz for use in automotive radar and the Indian government has now followed suit, recommending delicensing of 4 GHz for the same. The government has taken several initiatives under the ‘Make in India’ program and eased the procurement of demonstration license, experimental license and manufacturing license via a simplified online portal. The experimentation license has a nominal fee of Rs.5000 per year and startups are already working with the government on this initiative.

Security

Security in the automotive industry has undergone standardization with SAE and ISO working together to develop ISO 21434 which emphasises securing supply chain components. It includes securing the operating system, the application layer and other components right down to security at the chip level. Any breach of security in these layers could result in problems with the vehicle. It was therefore important to control the supply chain password and classify devices based on various security levels as defined by the standard. For imported cars, the eSIM profile downloading was a problem as the operating system and eSIM were built in the country of origin and the SIM was in a roaming state in India. The boot profile and primary profile were important and was required to be from the local Mobile Network Operators (MNO). The routing mechanism that controlled the profile was required to be migrated to the Indian environment as it was essential for eSIM security.

Even though we are primarily a four-wheel vehicle manufacturer but when we look at safety, we look at the entire spectrum, not just for the car or the occupants of the car.

Vinamra Gupta
Maruti Suzuki India Ltd