Satellite navigation fused with V2X technology

Semiconductor company STMicroelectronics and V2X chipset pioneer Autotalks have announced their fusion of GNSS technology and V2X ranging.

‘V2X-Enhanced GNSS’ ensures authenticated and secure vehicle localisation for accuracy of positioning information, especially in urban canyons, tunnels and parking structures, where accurate absolute and relative positioning — to other vehicles and infrastructure — is critical in progress towards autonomous vehicles.

“To fully realise the safety, convenience and other benefits of autonomous driving, we need confidence in the security, reliability and accuracy of the communications between our vehicle and its surroundings to know precisely how close we are to things, whether — and in what direction — they are moving, and what they are telling us — such as when there are roadworks or an accident ahead,” said Antonio Radaelli, director, infotainment, Automotive Digital Division, STMicroelectronics.

The deployment of V2X-Enhanced GNSS builds on the companies’ existing successes in co-developing a world-class V2X chipset that connects vehicles to other vehicles and infrastructure within wireless range for safety and mobility applications. They believe that the fusion of GNSS with V2X technology will result in the efficient, coordinated and safe driving of autonomous cars.

“Building upon our successful collaboration with Autotalks, we are combining ST’s state-of-the-art positioning technology and roadmap for high-precision automotive GNSS supporting satellite signal authentication with Autotalks’ expertise in advanced signal-processing algorithms for ranging to smoothly pave the road to secure, accurate and reliable V2X-Enhanced GNSS,” said Radaelli.

V2X-Enhanced GNSS technology, when coupled with V2X-enabled infrastructure, can provide absolute positioning to vehicles to assure lane-level accuracy. This precision improves navigation in urban canyons and tunnels and is also being used to develop myriad new applications, such as autonomous on-street and in-garage parking and available-spot identification.

Field trials to test the technology, monitored by a government agency, are currently taking place in Asia.