Mobile Carrier’s AV
SK Telecom, the nation’s largest mobile carrier, has jumped into the autonomous vehicle business for the first time in the industry,
The company and Seoul National University (SNU) Intelligent Vehicle IT Research Center announced on October 6 that they jointly developed the technology expanding the detectable range of autonomous vehicles using vehicle communication technology “V2X” and image recognition technology with the university’s driverless vehicle dubbed “SNUver” and demonstrated it at Seoul National University.
SK Telecom and SNU first established the vehicle communication network in the 5 km-section at its Gwanak Campus. Then, they installed sensors with vehicle communication technology on six traffic signal lamps and let SNUver receive traffic signals in real time. When the light was red, SNUver stopped, while it started driving when the light was green.
At the demonstration, the driving safety of SNUver was improved as the vehicle was equipped with both existing self-driving laser technology and SK Telecom’s vehicle communication technology and image recognition technology.
The built-in camera of SNUver can recognize the color of traffic lights at the same time. It can also recognize humans so SNUver will stop when they cross the street even in the red light.
The existing laser technology equipped in SNUver, “Light detection and Ranging (LiDAR),” allows a car to avoid collision or minimize damage with the one next ahead by shooting the beam ahead and measuring the distance. However, it has had difficulties to clearly identify objects ahead.
In addition, SK Telecom and SNU enabled SNUver to eliminate the blind spot by using closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras fixed on the road. The LiDAR cannot recognize every corner of the side street so it can slowly respond to incidents like man suddenly running out of an alley. When CCTVs on the alley delivers information that man is coming out to the street to SNUver in advance with the vehicle communication technology, SNUver can preemptively respond to the situation.
Once the fifth generation mobile communication is commercialized in the future, much more data can be exchanged via mobile communication networks. Therefore, mobile carriers are expected to expand its role in the sector.