Mobile Mobile Networks – Part 2
Wireless electric vehicle charging and more mobile networks on the move
Following on from the part one of this two part blog, John Stenlake went on to talk about Electric Vehicles. Someone in the audience asked whether EVs were suitable for long distance journeys across Europe. The general consensus was that it was not a good idea unless new and faster methods of roadside vehicle battery charging were be made available. Plug in charge points are still few and far between and relatively cumbersome. Wireless charging, if available would be a very attractive proposition. A few days later I noticed an article in The Metro that smartphone microchip manufacturer Qualcomm had recently announced their Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) solution called ‘Halo’, When available this technology will remove the need to plug vehicles in to charging points.
Maybe sometime soon we will see WEVC enabled parking bays in shopping centres and roadside services to solve this inherent EV vehicle issue, although I suspect the amount of time it takes to fully charge the batteries may remain an issue for the foreseeable future. Maybe we will see sections of WEVC roads where vehicles can boost their charge on the move by pulling over into a tolled charging lane.
Qualcomm are already leaders in wireless charging technology with their WiPower wireless charging system for their new generation of mobile devices. Some vehicle manufacturers are building WiPower technology into their vehicles to ease mobile device charging. In addition to this, they are also planning to use their Snapdragon processors to manage 4G vehicle information and entertainment systems. Maybe there is another opportunity to use these processors to manage in vehicle safety systems at some stage in the future.
What about ongoing support for older cars?
John also raised the point that vehicle manufacturers’ dependence on programmable control units, sensors and software may mean that our beloved vehicles may go the same way as our PCs and laptops. As vehicles are becoming more reliable and their operational life span increases, they may now reach a premature end of life due to lack of software support.
There is a possibility that third party manufacturers may fill the gap in the market producing parts and software under license. One member of the audience raised the point that you can still buy parts for old vehicles, such as SU carburettors. However, it is early days in the vehicle software world so we will have to watch this space to see whether this becomes a solution for all vehicles. I am already struggling to get affordable compatible parts for my 2008 Jeep other than from specialist breakers.
The presentation moved on to a problem that many of us are already seeing with integral satellite navigation systems. The cab driver bringing John to our Livery Hall had three satellite navigation systems in use with only one providing the correct route. The integral vehicle unit with out of date maps, a NavMan on his mobile phone and the integral unit in his cab management system. I have an integral system in my Jeep that is virtually useless due to the outdated maps on the supplied DVD.
“…so the only way to resolve this was to upgrade the software on every sensor in the car. This process involved two days work…”
Earlier in John’s presentation he mentioned an incident with his own vehicle when he needed a new rear door window motor. His car has over 80 sensors feeding into a central processing unit. The window motor assembly has one of these sensors and the software in the replacement motor sensor was a later version and was not compatible with the original system. The new sensor could not be down-graded so the only way to resolve this was to upgrade the software on every sensor in the car. This process involved two days work rather than an hour or so to simply change the window motor assembly.
The presentation was excellent and gave a very good insight into automotive technologies and it left me wondering what motoring would be like in the future if some of these vehicle wireless communications developments go into production vehicles. The ultimate would be for all vehicles to drive themselves but we are a long way from that. The legal implications alone will prevent driverless vehicles becoming the norm any time soon. John the ‘who to kill’ point which relates to the vehicle having to make a decision based on a number of parameters that if a collision is unavoidable should it continue on, brake, swerve to the left or right? Who or what should the vehicle sacrifice? A very interesting debate and one for another day.
“…these telemetry, safety, information and entertainment systems will all require mobile network capacity to function.”
There is a huge potential for all of the other aspects mentioned above to make motoring a much more enjoyable and safer experience. However, these telemetry, safety, information and entertainment systems will all require mobile network capacity to function. So that leaves a big question as to whether the lack of available spectrum will have a big impact on the progress of these systems. In the UK this could be a big problem with the imminent migration of the emergency services communications systems onto the commercial mobile spectrum. The emergency services communications endpoints will get priority over the general public during times of network congestion.
So, going back to our scenario with a major road incident where hundreds of vehicles are going to descend into a small location. On scene and on route emergency services will be coordinating the incident via their wireless communications devices, while sensors on their vehicles are relaying vital information on the location and operational status of vehicle components and rescue and life saving equipment. The passengers in the stationary private vehicles have a number of mobile devices between them and in the event of an incident they are likely to be in constant use for voice calls, news and entertainment.
“We also need to consider the consequences of a major mobile network outage…”
Taking all of this into consideration what happens to our emergency advanced warning system for vehicles approaching the incident at speed when their 4G vehicle management system communications is in the same cell competing for network access? We also need to consider the consequences of a major mobile network outage on the scale of the o2 outage last Monday.
I am not saying this is impossible to manage but it will undoubtedly be a very challenging network engineering problem.