On the Feasibility of Remote Driving Applications Over mmWave 5G Vehicular Communications: Implementation and Demonstration

Abstract

This paper presents a study conducted for the feasibility validation of a remote driving application, which is one of the use cases of 5G Vehicle-to-everything (V2X), over millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G New Radio (NR) vehicular communications. First, the overall network architecture of a typical mmWave 5G NR communication system and design details of essential system components for remote driving applications are provided. Then, we discuss key technologies, including beam switching, automatic gain control, uplink transmit power control, and hybrid automatic repeat request with soft combining, enabling the system to offer reliable communication links for remote driving support. Lastly, we describe the implementation and deployment of testbeds and provide the experimental results obtained from field trials. The field trial results reveal that leveraged by the key enabling technologies and mmWave providing a wider spectrum and shortened latency, the mmWave 5G NR vehicular communication system has the capability to provide broadband, reliable, and low-latency communication links for the realization of remote driving applications, which eventually paves the road towards expanding the applicability of mmWave communication systems.