Overview of Vehicle communication & LoRa / LoRaWAN protocol
By: Mohamed Chouati
Tags: Automotive, Autonomous Cars, V2x, IoT, Lorawan

Vehicle communication is an area that has recently gained the attention of the automotive industry. With the dawn of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, the possibilities to perform this task have multiplied, due to the emergence of low-cost and versatile surveillance devices and the evolution of transmission technologies. wireless. The Low Power Consumption Network (LPWAN) encompasses a set of IoT communication technologies that are gaining momentum due to their highly valued characteristics in transmission distance and power consumption of endpoints. namely the long-range network (LoRaWAN)

What is V2X communication ?

V2X, which stands for ‘vehicle to everything’, is the umbrella term for the car’s communication system, where information from sensors and other sources travels via high-bandwidth, low-latency, high-reliability links, paving the way to fully autonomous driving.

There are several components of V2X, including vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P), and vehicle-to-network (V2N) communications. In this multifaceted ecosystem, cars will talk to other cars, to infrastructure such as traffic lights or parking spaces, to smartphone-toting pedestrians, and to datacentres via cellular networks. Different use cases will have different sets of requirements, which the communications system must handle efficiently and cost-effectively.

There are two types of V2X communication technology depending on the underlying technology being used :

The original V2X communication uses WLAN technology and works directly between vehicles and vehicles (V2V) and traffic infrastructure (V2I), which form a vehicular ad-hoc network as two V2X senders come within each other’s range. Hence it does not require any communication infrastructure for vehicles to communicate, which is key to assure safety in remote or little-developed areas.

3GPP (C-V2X) :

More recent V2X communication uses cellular networks and is called cellular V2X (or C-V2X) to differentiate it from the WLAN-based V2X. There have been multiple industry organizations, such as the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) promoting C-V2X due to its advantages over WLAN based V2X (without considering disadvantages at the same time).

What is LoRa ?

LoRa (short for long range) is a spread spectrum modulation technique derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology.LoRa devices and wireless radio frequency technology is a long range, low power wireless platform that has become the de facto technology for Internet of Things (IoT) networks worldwide. LoRa devices and the open LoRaWAN protocol enable smart IoT applications that solve some of the biggest challenges facing our planet: energy management, natural resource reduction, pollution control, infrastructure efficiency, disaster prevention, and more. Semtech’s LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN protocol have amassed several hundred known uses cases for smart cities, smart homes and buildings, smart agriculture, smart metering, smart supply chain and logistics, and more.

Key Features of LoRa Technology

Why LoRa protocol in V2X network communication ?

The weakness of short-range wireless signal and security issues will make a bad effect on the communication in Vehicle-to-Vehicle or Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2X). The reason why is , to reduce the latency of communication and minimize the data size in V2X networks. Through the experiment, it shows that the proposed system can enhance the overall performance and reduce the latency in V2X networks. Moreover, the security of transmitting data is increased.

References

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337008851_Autonomous_Vehicle_Communication_in_V2X_Network_with_LoRa_Protocol

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331676083_Software-Defined_Heterogeneous_Vehicular_Networking_The_Architectural_Design_and_Open_Challenges/figures?lo=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic