STMicroelectronics , a semiconductor vendor and Israel-based Autotalks, a V2X-chipset vendor, have announced their fusion of GNSS technology and V2X ranging.
The new “V2X-Enhanced GNSS” ensures authenticated and secure vehicle localisation for extreme accuracy and reliability of positioning information, especially in urban canyons, tunnels, and parking structures, where accurate absolute and relative positioning—to other vehicles and infrastructure—is critical in progress toward semi- and fully-autonomous vehicles.
Autotalks’ and ST’s development of V2X-Enhanced GNSS builds on the companies’ existing successes in co-developing a world-class V2X chipset that connects vehicles to other vehicles and infrastructure within wireless range for safety and mobility applications. The promise of efficient, coordinated, and safe driving of autonomous cars can result only from the accurate positioning that the fusion of GNSS with V2X technology achieves.
“autonomous driving requires equal measures of reliability, accuracy, and security and no driver would sacrifice any of these,”
— Hagai Zyss, CEO of Autotalks.
“Our solutions have been architected from the beginning to enable automated driving and because we recognise positioning for autonomous vehicles as critical, Autotalks, with ST, continues to optimise accurate V2X positioning—and we believe that our customers understand the value and potential.”
V2X-Enhanced GNSS technology, when coupled with V2X-enabled infrastructure, can uniquely provide absolute positioning to vehicles to assure lane-level accuracy. This precision improves navigation in urban canyons and tunnels and is also being used to develop myriad new applications, such as autonomous on-street and in-garage parking and available-spot identification.
“To fully realise the safety, convenience, and other benefits of autonomous driving, we need confidence in the security, reliability, and accuracy of the communications between our vehicle and its surroundings to know precisely how close we are to things, whether—and in what direction—they are moving, and what they are telling us—such as when there are roadworks or an accident ahead,” said Antonio Radaelli, Director, Infotainment, Automotive Digital Division, STMicroelectronics. “Building upon our successful collaboration with Autotalks, we are combining ST’s state-of-the-art positioning technology and roadmap for high-precision Automotive GNSS supporting satellite signal authentication with Autotalks’ expertise in advanced signal-processing algorithms for ranging, to smoothly pave the road to secure, accurate, and reliable V2X-Enhanced GNSS.”
Field trials in an Asian country, monitored by a government agency, are being used to test this technology in 2016.
V2X ranging between vehicles and roadside infrastructure provides an additional level of absolute accuracy beyond that offered by GNSS, which can vary significantly because of atmospheric signal interference, the number and angle of constellation satellites in view, multi-path reflection, antenna configuration, and other factors. US government data suggest that a high-quality Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Standard Positioning Service (SPS) receiver provides better than 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) horizontal accuracy. Connection of GNSS with a secure V2X chipset, and fusion of the two technologies, GNSS and V2X ranging, offer a trusted positioning reference, in which vehicle localization is authenticated and secure, as well as the link between GNSS and the V2X chipset.
