The United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) and Ericsson have announced the signing of an MoU to collaborate on the development and testing of 5G use cases, with a specific focus on autonomous driving. Through the collaboration they hope to accelerate development and testing of autonomous transportation solutions in line with the strategic national targets set by the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) government.
The parties will work with the region’s communication service providers (CSPs) and explore how 5G can enable development of an autonomous driving ecosystem in the UAE, and support smart transportation services for consumers. The collaboration will be a testbed for new technologies in the region and will contribute to the long-term societal development goals of the country.
Ericsson notes that the amount of data that will be transferred over networks for autonomous driving will significantly increase over the coming years. In order to progressively deploy new capabilities, fleet operators need the ability to frequently and securely update large parts of onboard software. This will place significant requirements on the network and cloud infrastructure that dispatches the software updates.
As the digital infrastructure matures in smart cities all vehicles can begin to communicate with each other, with the surrounding infrastructure and with pedestrians – increasing safety for all. The high-speed data transfer speeds, ultra-low latency and increased reliability provided by 5G networks can enable a vehicle to seamlessly communicate with the cellular network, other vehicles, roadside infrastructure, and even pedestrians in real-time.
Professor Ghaleb Al Hadrami Al Breiki, acting vice chancellor at UAEU, said, “This cooperation comes in line with the UAE efforts to achieve the digital government within the fourth industrial revolution, which depends fundamentally on the digital revolution and information technology.
“UAEU ‘the University of the Future’ looks forward to developing innovations that enhance and transform transportation in the country, as the university is an integrated, advanced and smart research environment that adopts everything new that facilitates people’s lives, speeds up service delivery, shortens processes and procedures, and saves time and effort.”