Anritsu Corporation, in collaboration with dSpace, has developed an advanced digital twin simulation environment to provide improved protection for vulnerable road users (VRUs).
At the 5GAA (5G Automotive Association) Meeting Week, held October 23-27, 2023, in Detroit, Michigan, the companies demonstrated a road safety use case using the C-V2X 5G network for cooperative communications.
dSpace’s PC-based simulator is a tool that simulates the integration of environmental, infrastructure, sensor and vehicle information using a PC. In the demonstration at the 5GAA event, VRU protection simulation has been performed by reproducing the University of Michigan’s automotive test course Mcity, together with smart cameras and different road users.
In the demonstration, V2X data messages generated by communication devices such as smartphones carried by vulnerable road users, as well as sensor information from intersection cameras, have been transmitted to an OEM application that displays VRU protection results on the vehicle side via 5G communication using Anritsu’s 5G base station simulator.
Vulnerable road users include pedestrians, cyclists, among others, and there is growing global interest in using C-V2X technologies to prevent accidents with vehicles. VRU protection is actively being developed for roads and intersections to ensure safety and improve accident prevention.
As a technology to support this, there has been direct detection of VRU by installing ADAS sensors in vehicles. The international organization 5GAA has been investigating accident prevention methods using 5G-network-based communication, which is based on cooperative communications to and from VRUs.
Unlike in-vehicle-based methods, it is expected that protection in blind spots (such as outside the effective detection range of vehicle-mounted sensors and building shadows) will also be possible via 5G network communication. To achieve this, the 5G communication to cooperative VRUs must be reliable, and the evaluation of QoS management and fault tolerance at the IP layer is a critical factor.
The demo solution provides a digital twin environment for real-world scenarios, so VRU protection testing can be started virtually when features are not yet available on the real vehicle.
Anritsu will continue to develop this solution to improve the protection of vulnerable road users and contribute to the development of smart cities by setting up an advanced simulation environment using digital twins.
“Today almost 40% of fatalities on the road are people outside the vehicles: pedestrians, cyclists, road workers, children, and more. It is a priority for the 5GAA members to leverage C-V2X technologies to protect these vulnerable road users. This digital twin technology demonstration shows how C-V2X communications can offer this great societal opportunity,” said Maxime Flament, CTO of 5GAA.