Ford Flies the Flag for C-V2X at Denver Demo

Greg Hyde

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16th August 2018

Ford has demonstrated its cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology connecting one of its vehicles to road infrastructure and traffic data management centers.

At a presentation in Denver, Colorado held in conjunction with Panasonic, Qualcomm and the Colorado Department of Transportation, Ford displayed what Panasonic claimed was “the first real-world application” of C-V2X. This is a questionable claim, since a similar demonstration involving SICE’s connective road infrastructure and Nokia’s multi-access edge computing (MAC) server was carried out by Telefónica and SEAT in Spain last month.

A Ford F-150 was used for the demonstration, as were three C-V2X-equipped roadside units designed to allow vehicles to communicate with each other and infrastructure. The data from vehicles, infrastructure and the roadside units was then all triangulated at the traffic management center, dubbed the Network Operations Center (NOC) by Panasonic.

Panasonic CityNOW director of smart mobility Chris Armstrong said C-V2X allows the NOC to monitor all connected roadways. “Roadway operators can use infrastructure to collect connected vehicle data … and create situational awareness from this data”. He added that the NOC uses data on a car’s “position, speed and heading” as well as the “weather segment data” it gathers from factors like the status of windshield wipers to provide a car with its basic safety message (BSM). Panasonic claims this increased “situational awareness” will lead to “a dramatic improvement of safety on the road”.