On April 24, Huawei announced the establishment of the "5G Automotive Ecosphere" in conjunction with 18 car companies. The aim is to jointly accelerate the commercialization of 5G technology in the automotive industry and create a 5G automotive ecosystem for consumers.
The 18 companies that Huawei has joined forces with cover most of China's car companies. They are: FAW Red Flag, FAW Pentium, FAW Jiefang, SAIC Passenger Cars, SAIC GM Wuling, BAIC New Energy, BYD, Changan Automobile, Great Wall Motor, Dongfeng Xiaokang, Dongfeng Passenger Cars, BAIC New Energy, JAC, Yutong Bus, Chery, Jinkanselis, Nanjing Iveco, T3 Travel.
Huawei has more and more friends in the automotive industry, what will it bring to the car with 5G technology?
Huawei focuses on automotive ecology
In recent years, we have seen new brands announce their entry into the field of new energy vehicles, and there are new companies and capital to join the army of car building, and Huawei's entry into the automotive sector has long been no secret.
At the 2019 Shanghai Auto Show, Huawei's presence as a technology company was already a major focus of attention, and during the auto show, Huawei announced that it would not be involved in the car manufacturing business in the future, and would only target car eco-building and in-car chip development.
To be precise, only ICT technology is promoted to automotive companies, and ICT refers to the combination of IT and CT, such as communication, electronic information, Internet and media, which we are familiar with.
Alibaba's Jack Ma said, "What makes the most money in the future is data! The ICT industry is about control of future data resources and pipelines and is the largest source of data for the economic output of countries in the future, the ICT industry will become increasingly important.
Soon, we will also see the use of ICT technology in cars: autonomous driving, smart Internet, cloud services, 5G, etc.
Huawei is also aiming to become a supplier of incremental components for smart connected cars in the future, with its technological advantages in 5G technology and chips.
More and more friends! What will Huawei, which never built a car, bring to the car with 5G technology?
Huawei's world's first 5G in-car module
In the automotive sector, Huawei began laying out its "Internet of Vehicles Business Unit" as early as 2013, when the entire Internet of Vehicles penetration rate was only 4.4%.
In January 2019, Balong 5000, a 5G multimode terminal chip, will be launched, which will open up the 5G era for cars with single-cell multimode, high speed, V2X support and other innovative technologies.
It is based on this chip that Huawei has developed the world's first 5G in-vehicle module with high speed and quality. Last year at the Shanghai Auto Show, Huawei also showed the industry the MH5000, a 5G in-car module.
The MH5000 vehicle module is highly integrated with the C-V2X technology of roadside collaboration, which together help the future of smart mobility. V2X: V2X means vehicle everything and includes V2V (car and vehicle), V2N (car and network), V2P (car and people), V2I (car and infrastructure), which means the vehicle is connected to the entire transportation environment.
The MH5000's onboard module support for C-V2X also reflects the power of its technology, giving the vehicle even more possibilities. Meanwhile, C-V2X technology, which is a road synergy, will also help intelligent transportation and intelligent driving.
In order to complete the data communication with road, people, cloud and car, the MH5000 adopts single-core multi-mode and supports SA and NSA two types of networking.
Root Huawei's official test results show a maximum downlink peak rate of 2Gbps and a maximum uplink peak rate of 230Mbps, while supporting third-party application development.
As an important communication product for the future of smart mobility in cars, this 5G in-vehicle module will drive the automotive industry towards the 5G era quickly. Huawei's 5G in-vehicle module has already started the 5G commercial process in the automotive industry in the second half of 2019.
Why are 5G in-car modules so important for cars?
When it comes to 5G in-vehicle modules, we have to understand the 5G advantage over 4G.
5G technology can theoretically reach hundreds of times the speed of 4G technology, i.e. 10 Gbps, and 5G networks that are still in the testing phase have successfully reached 1 Gbps in the 28 gigahertz (GHz) band.
In comparison, current fourth-generation Long Term Evolution (4G LTE) services have transmission rates of only 75Mbps, hundreds of times faster than 4G networks.
When 5G technology is applied to cars in the future, passengers will feel it most visually.
In-car infotainment systems will be richer, faster, with better operating systems, and in-car systems will have more and more features, just like mobile phones.
In-car navigation maps will be more accurate, real-time map updates will be timelier and more comprehensive, and real-world navigation will undoubtedly be used.
In addition to technical support for driverless car technology, 5G will provide safer and more reliable connectivity for vehicle control, vehicle lifecycle maintenance, sensor data transmission, and more, features that are critical in highway and dense urban traffic.
Intelligent driving includes network navigation, autonomous driving and human intervention. However, 5G technology with low latency and high speed will also accelerate the implementation of drones.
The Huawei 5G MH5000 in-car module C-V2X function is also an important feature that is essential for building the automotive ecosystem.
This C-V2X technology was developed based on our cellular network standard (the United States is based on Wi-Fi technology; the Chinese standard is more flexible and has greater advantages).
In the future, there will also be effective interaction between the 5G tandem roadside unit RSU and the on-board unit OBU through information that allows the driver to be the first to know about traffic information and dangerous situations.
If drones are in the future, then 5G technology will also be a big boost to the hottest car of the moment: automated smart driving technology, improving production, labor, transportation efficiency, etc.
As one of the emerging industries that the country vigorously develops and supports, smart driving itself has very high technical requirements for information technology, in fact, as early as 2016, China has already issued a roadmap for the future development of smart networked vehicles, dividing the entire development of smart networked vehicles in China into three stages, all related to vehicle road synergy.
To realize the information exchange between the car and the road, so that the roadside information better serves the car, to improve travel safety efficiency.
Deployment of roadside or road information-aware 5G systems can effectively assist in the installation of sensors based on single-vehicle capability in the car, classify the road, enrich the intelligent networked road with more comprehensive information-aware capability, as well as the so-called comprehensive communication networked road coverage.
The 5G network is controlled collaboratively, and the road information acts as a fifth sensor for autonomous driving to provide effective information to the vehicle, even in certain scenarios where the road information allows the vehicle itself to make decisions.
Achieving these plans is no doubt premised on mastering 5G technology, and the 18 car companies Huawei has joined forces with are doing something similar. In the unmanned era of the future, the C-V2X is a must.
It is not enough to have smart cars, but to have advanced 5G smart infrastructure at the roadside and smarter 5G in-car terminals, so that the cars themselves can have a safer and more efficient smart travel experience.
5G car technology has now become the focus of development and innovation hotspot of the automotive industry, for intelligent Internet connection, intelligent transportation, automatic driving and other scenarios can also open up new imagination, so that consumers can perceive new driving experience, entertainment experience.
Since the release of the world's first 5G in-vehicle module MH5000 in April 2019, Huawei has provided many automotive enterprises with products and technologies such as the 5G in-vehicle module MH5000 and the 5G in-vehicle terminal T-Box platform, supporting application innovation for 5G vehicles and 5G+C-V2X smart network connectivity.
This time, Huawei has joined hands with so many car companies to build a 5G car eco-circle, and it's not hard to see Huawei's desire to use the advantages of incremental car parts, a full-scene experience for consumers with 1+8+N, and the capability of 5G network solutions.
The company will deliver more Huawei technologies, platforms and innovations to car enterprises, and serve them more systematically to carry out 5G car innovation.
Sum up
Technology and automobiles are converging at an accelerated pace, and technology companies have a natural advantage over traditional car companies in terms of both technology and speed of response, by virtue of their advantages in intelligence and technology.
It is also an R&D cost and time cost savings for traditional car companies, and the cooperation between the two different fields is also a complementary advantage.
Although Huawei has no plans to build a car, it can be understood that Huawei has helped many car companies to improve car functions, helping China's smart car development will enter a new stage.
At present, the automotive ecosystem is still an emerging industry, and with Huawei's own chip R&D capabilities and 5G technology, it is foreseeable that Huawei will make great achievements in this field.
Recently, new infrastructure has become a hot topic of conversation. At its meeting on March 4, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee stressed that the major projects and infrastructure construction that have been clarified in the national plan will be promoted, the progress of new infrastructure construction such as 5G networks and data centers will be accelerated, and the general trend of 5Gification and smart cars will be accelerated with the support of policies.