Ericsson, Orange and PSA Group are partnering to conduct a 5G technology pilot for automotive applications.

The partnership will address connected vehicle requirements to improve road safety, as well as new automotive connected services for a better user experience.

The ‘Towards 5G’ initiative will trial 5G network technology to address connected vehicle requirements such as intelligent transport system (ITS) to improve road safety, new automotive and in-car services.

The partnership will use Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) architecture and real-time performance to deploy ITS and connected services in vehicles. Initial tests use end-to-end architecture system with LTE technology and will evolve to LTE-V and 5G technology.

The partnership will conduct live testing using a test track on a French site, equipped with an end-to-end wireless network and will evolve to LTE-V and 5G technology.

Under the partnership, Ericsson will provide the radio and a distributed virtualized core network to enable network slicing capabilities and intelligent geo-messaging service.

Orange is providing the cellular network with the associated spectrum on the field trial site and the on-board connectivity integrating vehicular use cases.

PSA Group is in charge of automotive use case requirement definition, embedded architecture integration, user experience and technical validation.

The collaboration will develop a comprehensive experience of the requirements for a 5G infrastructure that fits to the needs of the connected vehicles industry. It will also identify the full potential of innovative services and use cases for the benefit of improving road safety and for better quality of services to end users.

“Connected IoT services are a crucial way to enhance the user experience for our customers, who today demand unprecedented levels of comfort and convenience as well as personalised services in their vehicles,” said Carla Gohin, research, innovation and advanced technologies VP at PSA Group.