The Fifth Generation Cross-Border Control consortium (5GCroCo) has revealed a range of technologies it has developed to achieve seamless 5G connectivity when driving across continental Europe.

The 5GCroCo project, which launched in 2018 with €13m EU funding, has undertaken a series of trials which it claims will ensure 5G connectivity in cross-border, cross-mobile-network operator, cross-car-original-equipment-manufacturer and cross-telco-vendor scenarios.

Led by telecoms giant Orange, the project has spent the past three years testing 5G New Radio (5GNR), mobile edge computing, cloud computing and network slicing technologies on roads along the corridor areas that connect the cities of Metz, Merzig and Luxembourg in France, Germany, and Luxembourg respectively.

According to the project, the trials featured co-operation between 24 partner companies from across seven countries and saw the development of tele-operated driving (ToD), high definition map generation for automated vehicles, and 5G-enabled anticipated co-operative collision avoidance (ACCA) technology.

ToD could enable the deployment of truly driverless vehicles through remote operation of the vehicle from a Vehicle Control Center (VCoC) in the corridor linking Schengen in Luxembourg, Forbach in France and the city of Saarbrücken in Germany in a future phase.

Cédric Seureau, program manager at Orange Innovation, said: “This is an important step after 12 years of research on connected mobility. Cars that no longer rely solely on their own sensors but can extend their awareness to all sources of communication around them—including other vehicles, the road and urban infrastructure, and pedestrians—will be a reality in the not-too-distant future. We are building an ecosystem that grows around 5G connectivity for vehicles.”

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