Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology is seen by many as an important enabler for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), a system developed to facilitate autonomous driving and smart cities with intelligent transportation systems (ITS).
Testing Cellular V2X (C-V2X)
Distributed Short Range Communication (DSRC) defined in IEEE802.11p has been around for years as the main radio technology for V2X, supporting Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) as well as Infrastructure-to-Vehicle (I2V) communication. Recently, we’ve seen growing support for usage of cellular radio technology for that same purpose.
Now with Cellular V2X (C-V2X) specifications published by 3GPP as part of Release 14 of the LTE standards and its first implementations hitting the market, the need for testing C-V2X to ensure interoperability and validate performance is becoming urgent. C-V2X defines Proximity Services (ProSe) and the PC5 (aka Sidelink) interface for device-to-device communication, to support Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) applications.
C-V2X Test System Showcased at OmniAir Texas Plugfest
Spirent’s state-of-the art test solutions are well-established for verifying conformance and performance of DSRC-based V2X protocols as per ETSI ITS-G5 and IEEE1609/SAE standards. The latest OmniAir Texas Plugfest was another opportunity for key players in this arena to come together and re-assess their readiness for deployment.
This plugfest also featured a C-V2X demonstration test system, utilizing Spirent TTsuite-WAVE-DSRC test solution combined with a C-V2X radio device, to test an On-Board Unit (OBU) as Device Under Test (DUT) via the PC5 interface. This showcase was a joint effort lead by 7Layers, with Qualcomm contributing their C-V2X reference design as a proxy radio device, Commsignia providing 1609.x protocol stack, along with the application for Spirent test software to automatically control the DUT via the standardized Test Control Interface (TCI). (Figure 1)

Utilizing the above-mentioned configuration, the transmission and reception of BSM (Basic Safety Message) packets was tested for two DUTs provided by Commsignia and Cohda Wireless respectively.
Participants in the C-V2X demonstration agreed to leverage the successful showcase for strengthening their collaboration towards providing efficient test tools to speed-up the deployment of V2X technology, help enhance road safety and intelligent transportation systems.

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