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 In October 1999, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated the 5.9-GHz band for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications. This sparked a whole range of activities, which, in the United States, is now commonly known as dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) or cooperative intelligent transportation systems (C-ITS).
The vision is that, using V2V technology, vehicles ranging
from cars to trucks, buses, and trains can communicate important safety and
mobility information to one another to help save lives, prevent injuries, ease
traffic congestion, and improve the environment. However, the unlicensed Wi-Fi
band is becoming crowded as more devices connect.
In April 2016, the cable industry and various organizations,
including Dell, Google, Intel, Qualcomm, Public Knowledge (a nonprofit public
interest group), and the Open Technology Institute at New America (a public
policy think tank), wrote a letter to President Obama stating that the 5.9-GHz
band is the country’s best unlicensed spectrum opportunity, that it should be
shared and opened up for Wi-Fi, and that, so far, ITS has not made meaningful
use of it. ITS America, among others, was skeptical with respect to the
potential impact on IEEE 802.11p (V2V technology at 5.9 GHz in the United States).
Therefore, in May, more than 50 automakers and
transportation-related organizations wrote a DSRC coalition letter to President
Obama urging him not to open a portion of the spectrum reserved for connected
vehicles, stating that doing so would be an enormous setback for highway safety
and would delay deployment. Later in May, the FCC voted to approve a Public
notice that seeks comment on testing spectrum-sharing on the 5.9-GHz band.
In June, the spectrum discussion took a different turn when
Public Knowledge and the Open Technology Institute at New America filed a
petition with the FCC stating that, regardless of whether or not it allows
unlicensed devices to operate in all or part of the DSRC band on a
noninterfering basis, it must impose adequate cybersecurity and privacy
protections before allowing automakers to activate any DSRC systems. The
petitioners claim that the DSRC service lacks rules to protect user privacy and
prevent cybersecurity attacks, and the FCC must act to avoid a Trojan horse
scenario initiated by the auto industry.
In August, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the
Association of Global Automakers, and the Intelligent Transportation Society of
America submitted an opposition to the petition stating that the FCC should
deny the petitioner’s request to stop DSRC. They asserted that DSRC systems do
not collect, transmit, or store information linkable to a particular version or
vehicle and that the security risks are grossly exaggerated.
In September, the DOT released a policy called the Federal
Automated Vehicles Policy, which establishes guidelines to ensure the safe and
timely introduction of self-driving vehicles. In addition, the White House
announced that work would proceed with the proposed Federal Motor Vehicle
Safety Standard for Vehicle-to- Vehicle Communications
The heated debate is likely to continue as more devices
connect and the frequency spectrum becomes more crowded. A somewhat similar
debate as taken place in Europe, where the ITS frequency band at 5.9 GHz is
located very close to the electronic toll collection system, at 5.8 GHz. Proper
functionality of both systems needs to be guaranteed, and, therefore,
coexistence strategies need to be developed. This is especially true when
systems dedicated to safety must coexist with systems of high commercial value,
as the true economic value of safety is often difficult to assess.
Full article: IEEE
Vehicular Technology Magazine, Volume 11, Number 4, December 2016 |
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