Industry

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X)

Direct wireless communication between a vehicle and other vehicles, roadside infrastructure, pedestrians' devices and the network, mainly for safety and traffic efficiency.

V2X lets a vehicle broadcast its position, speed and heading and receive the same from nearby vehicles and roadside units, so that hazards can be detected beyond the line of sight of onboard sensors. Sub-cases include vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-pedestrian. Two radio technologies compete: a Wi-Fi-derived standard and cellular V2X defined by 3GPP, which also supports direct sidelink communication without a base station.

The point is latency: a warning about a stopped vehicle ahead is only useful if it arrives within a few tens of milliseconds. For cities, V2X links traffic signals and connected cars so that emergency vehicles can get priority. Adoption depends on enough equipped vehicles and roadside units being present, which has made rollout slow.

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