On the feasibility of remote driving application over dense 5G roadside networks

Remote driving (RD) is a critical backup option for an autonomous vehicle when it faces an unexpected situation on the road. Fifth generation (5G) mobile communication is a key enabler of RD providing link between the remote operator and the vehicle. There are stringent requirements in terms of coverage, data rate and latency for RD application. In this paper, a feasibility study at the radio access network level for the radio coverage conditions that are required for RD application is carried out. The study considers RD over three carriers including 2.6 GHz, 5 GHz and 28 GHz. A ray tracing software is used for the channel pathloss computation. The RD provision in terms of coverage and rate statistics is analysed for these frequency carriers. The role of interference is also investigated. The performance statistics are aggregated using a large number of realistic vehicular routes created using Google Directions APIs. It is shown that the provision of RD can not be guaranteed over a wide network area especially in high-load/high-interference conditions and it is more feasible to define the RD application for specific roads.