What Is Vehicle-to-Everything?
Benefits of Vehicle-to-Everything
One of the primary benefits of V2X is safety. With cars talking to each other, they can know more immediately when other vehicles change speed or direction than by inferring this indirectly using their built-in sensors. Evasive action can be taken more quickly, potentially preventing a collision.
V2X also enables cars to optimize routes dynamically based on traffic, stop signs and road speed information. This can make driving more energy efficient. V2X technology can also provide dynamic information to electric vehicles about location and status of charging facilities, helping them to avoid devices that are in use or broken for a seamless user experience.
With automated optimization, V2X can save drivers time and money. Driving routes can be faster and free from incident, and a Smart City can direct traffic flow to reduce urban congestion and emissions. Shared mobility solutions can be integrated with traffic density data and optimized.
Types of Vehicle-to-Everything
V2X combines different types of communication, including:
- Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V), in which cars can exchange data with each other, such as speed, location, and direction of travel. This will take place using wireless connectivity and in real-time.
- Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I), in which the car can exchange information with connected roads, urban infrastructure, such as traffic lights and road signs, and Smart City technology.
- Vehicle to Pedestrian (V2P), in which the car can detect pedestrians and other road occupants not in cars, such as cyclists, wheelchair users, and children in strollers.
- Vehicle to Network (V2N), in which the car exchanges data using standard wireless connectivity such as 4G, LTE, and 5G.
Together, these components deliver the suite of V2X capabilities.
How Vehicle-to-Everything Works
The foundations of V2X are connectivity and vehicle sensors. The Software-Defined Vehicle is an essential enabling platform. Cameras, radar, LiDAR, ultrasonics, and other sensors in the car deliver information to a centralized system, which can perform Intelligent Edge processing. The results can then be shared via wireless data connectivity, such as 5G, 4G, LTE, and WiFi. This connectivity must be robust and reliable so that the data provided can be trusted. It must also be ubiquitous. Data must be shared securely and follow prevailing privacy laws.
By making data from their sensors available to other vehicles and infrastructure, V2X-capable cars expand their awareness of road conditions. They also enable infrastructure administrators to gain more precise insights about traffic density, incidents, and criminal activity.
Vehicle-to-Everything vs Vehicle-to-Load
Although Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) and Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) have similar names, they are different. Whereas V2X is about communication between the vehicle and its environment, V2L is about an EV supplying power. Typically, electrical energy goes into an EV during charging and is used only locally for motion and other car functions.
With V2L, the car can supply electricity to external devices. This goes beyond using USB for charging phones and other personal devices. A plug inside the car or an adapter attached to the charging port will enable the vehicle to output AC power at the voltage and frequency of the local area. Regular domestic appliances can then be plugged in and powered.
Beyond this, a V2L variant called Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) enables the car to be used as a domestic battery. The vehicle’s energy storage can be called upon to balance the demand on the electricity grid, storing surplus power and releasing it at peak times.
As the developer of BlackBerry® QNX®, we are one of the leading organizations in the Software-Defined Vehicle space. For more than forty years, we’ve worked tirelessly to build safe, reliable, and secure embedded systems. And we’re not stopping there—in addition to investing heavily in autonomous vehicle research, we’re also working to enable the connected car.
That’s where BlackBerry IVY® comes in. Leveraging BlackBerry QNX, edge computing, and the cloud, BlackBerry IVY empowers developers and automakers with a secure, reliable way to share vehicle data, deliver new features and functionality, and fuel innovation. BlackBerry IVY is compatible with most platforms and shares close ties with BlackBerry’s broad development community.
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