ETSI C-V2X Plugtests event achieves a 93% interoperability success rate

Sophia Antipolis, 21 April 2022

The 3rd ETSI C-V2X PlugtestsTM event, held in partnership with 5GAA and hosted by DEKRA from 28 March to 1st April, achieved a success rate of 93% of the executed tests, showing an extremely positive level of multi-vendor interoperability. 226 test scenarios were executed in a laboratory and outdoor environment for interoperability, with 80 people from 25 companies participating in onsite and remote testing. All results are available in the newly released Report.

C-V2X (Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything) is an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) service using mobile communications technology for direct and network-based communication between vehicles, from vehicles to pedestrians and from vehicles to infrastructure.

The goal of interoperability testing is to check that implementations of devices with different form factors can work together and provide the functionalities specified in the standards. It accelerates time to market for industry.

The week-long face-to-face event at DEKRA in Klettwitz (Germany) enabled vendors of On-Board Units (OBUs), Roadside Units (RSUs) and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to run interoperability test sessions to assess the level of interoperability of their implementation and validate the understanding of the standards.

Outdoor interoperability testing included road hazard signalling, road works warning, longitudinal collision risk warning, in-vehicle signage, time to green, traffic jam warning and intersection collision risk warning.

In parallel, 5GAA organized a workshop on “C-V2X Interoperability and Deployment”, bringing together key players in the C-V2X ecosystem, including governmental entities. Stakeholders discussed the future of C-V2X for the automotive industries and the role of certification for the deployment of the technology, concluding with an insightful panel discussion. The Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) provided great insights on collaboration amongst policy makers, industry and research institutes, and gave an update on the Horizon Europe project, 2050 CCAM (Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility) Roadmap.

In another presentation, DEKRA provided information on the impact of certification for 5G Automotive. Commercial highlights included T-Systems’ presentation on how 5G Mobile edge computing enables various C-ITS Services and Vodafone’s presentation on its recently announced Safer Transport for Europe Platform (STEP), based on ETSI standards.

In addition to the workshop, vendors demonstrated interoperability by executing different ITS use cases.

2022 is an important year for implementing and deploying ITS services in many regions in the world. ETSI and 3GPP standards will play a significant role in making our roads safer.