Toward 6G-V2X: Aggregated RF-VLC for Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Autonomous Driving

We are witnessing a transition to a new era of mobility where pervasively connected (semi-) autonomous cars will deliver significantly improved safety, traffic efficiency, and travel experiences. A diverse set of advanced vehicular use cases such as platooning, remote driving, and fully autonomous driving will be made possible by building on emerging sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks. Among many disruptive 6G wireless technologies, the principal objective of this article is to introduce the potential benefits of the hybrid integration of Visible Light Communication (VLC) and Radio Frequency (RF) based Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication systems. We examine the impact of interference as well as various meteorological phenomena viz. rain, fog and dry snow, on the proposed Link aggregated (LA) aided hybrid RF-VLC V2X systems. The simulation results suggest that our proposed LA-aided hybrid RF-VLC V2X systems have the potential to achieve a high level of reliability (estimated at approximately 99.999%) and low latency (potentially less than 1 ms) within a range of up to 200 m, even in scenarios affected by interference and adverse meteorological conditions. To stimulate future research in the hybrid RF-VLC V2X area, we also highlight the potential challenges and research directions.

Introduction

Connected autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies are expected to support improved road safety, traffic efficiency, and driving comfort for a future society in motion. To fully support CAV, there is a growing demand for ultra-reliable and low-latency exchange of sensing and control dat^acollected by the many onboard sensors and communication devices in a modern car. Such a demand is believed to be met by the next-generation vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication technologies in the form of, for example, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V21) communications [1]. There are two major V2X streams: dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) based V2X and cellular-V2X (C-V2X). While DSRC represents a mature, cost-efficient V2X technology, C-V2X has ^attracted much attention in recent years because of its significantly improved coverage, throughput, and latency. The latter is due to the improved physical layer, centralized resource allocation, as well as sophisticated cellular infrastructure. In the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP), several V2X initiatives, such as LTE-V2X and 5G New Radio (NR)-V2X, have contributed to the prominence of C-V2X.