New Signal Design and Processing for Future Vehicular Communications (DRIVE)

据世界卫生组织估计，每年有超过130万人死于道路交通事故。自动化最终可以提供更安全的道路和更少的死亡人数，但为了让无人驾驶技术成为主流，需要做出很多改变；更高效的通信和网络对于完全自动驾驶至关重要。建立在先进智能交通系统基础上的互联自动驾驶汽车因其在极大地提高安全性、前所未有的出行体验和显著提高交通效率方面的潜力而受到越来越多的研究关注。这一愿景的核心是一个无处不在且高度可扩展的车辆到一切(V2X)通信网络，在该网络中，每辆车都可以自由和无缝地与其他车辆、人和机器进行对话和倾听。这样的V2X通信网络对于支持丰富多样的车辆使用案例至关重要。例如，远程驾驶、协调驾驶和路线规划、车内视频会议/游戏、高分辨率地图下载。通过实现一名司机控制多辆车的紧密合作队形出行，对司机的需求将减少，从而解决英国卡车司机短缺的问题。然而，随着5G及以上移动网络的发展，苛刻的车载通道、不同性质的车载网络以及日益严格的服务质量要求，要求增强信号设计和处理算法，以适应广泛的用例和通信设备。该项目将开发此类技术，为下一代V2X通信系统提供更安全、更快、更环保和更智能的数据服务奠定基础。创新将通过分析和开发更高效和可靠的车载传输信号及其相应的接收器设计，在传输效率、通信时延、接收复杂性和健壮性方面进行灵活权衡。我们希望通过应用最新的算法来改进传输信号的内在结构特性，并能够在接收端充分利用信道变化，从而取得重大进展。通过以实用为导向的研究方法，我们将分析和评估各种硬件缺陷和实际计算/存储限制在行业首选的车辆通道模型中的综合影响。针对日益增长的密集连接车辆，我们还将确定有效的解决方案，以实现高流动性渠道中海量、可靠、快速的车辆通信。具体地说，通过与AccerlerComm和Viavi Solution(两家5G通信公司)以及Conigtal(一家自动驾驶汽车开发商)合作，我们的目标是为可能影响学术界和行业的重大突破提供系统的设计指南、可行的信号处理算法和具体的实施方法。此外，通过与挪威卑尔根大学的合作，我们的项目可以在补充我们工作的领域加强数学问题的解决，从而使更广泛的研究界受益。总体而言，拟议的项目通过解决以车辆为中心的变速器信号设计和接收器处理中的几个基本问题，寻求开创性的研究成果。这些将使先进应用程序所需的改进，以实现未来交通系统的联网自动驾驶汽车的愿望。

Over 1.3 million people die each year because of road traffic crashes, according to the estimate of World Health Organisation. Automation could ultimately provide safer roads and less fatalities, but in order for driverless technology to become mainstream, much needs to change; more efficient communication and networking are essential for fully autonomous driving. Connected autonomous vehicles building upon advanced intelligent transportation systems are receiving increasing research attention due to their potentials in delivering tremendously improved safety, unprecedented travel experiences, and significantly enhanced traffic efficiency. Central to this vision is a ubiquitous and highly scalable vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication network in which every vehicle can "talk and listen" to other vehicles, people, and machines, freely and seamlessly. Such a V2X communication network is pivotal for the enabling of a rich variety of vehicular use cases. For instance, remote driving, coordinated driving & route planning, in-car video conferencing/gaming, high-resolution map downloading. By enabling travel in close cooperative formations with one driver controlling multiple vehicles, called 'platooning', the need for drivers would reduce thereby addressing the truck driver shortages in the UK. The harsh vehicular channels, the varying nature of vehicular networks, and the increasingly stringent quality-of-service requirements that arise under the evolution of the 5G-and-beyond mobile networks, however, call for enhanced signal design and processing algorithms to accommodate a vast range of use cases and communication devices. This project will develop such technology to lay the foundations for the next generation V2X communication systems to deliver safer, faster, greener, and smarter data services.Innovations will be made by analysing and developing more efficient and reliable vehicular transmission signals as well as their corresponding receiver designs to strike a flexible trade-off in terms of transmission efficiency, communication time lags, reception complexity and robustness. Major advances are expected by our application of the most up-to-date algorithms to improve the intrinsic structural properties of the transmission signals and to enable the full exploitation of the channel variations at the receiver. By carrying out a practicality-oriented research method, we will analyse and evaluate the combined effects of various hardware imperfections and practical computing/storage constraints in the industry preferred vehicular channel models. In view of the ever-growing densely connected vehicles, we will also determine effective solutions for massive, reliable, and rapid vehicular communications in high mobility channels. Specifically, by working with AccerlerComm and VIAVI Solution (two 5G communications companies), and Conigital (an autonomous vehicle developer), we aim for systematic design guidelines, feasible signal processing algorithms, and concrete implementation approaches for significant breakthroughs that can influence both academia and industry. Moreover, by collaborating with the University of Bergen in Norway, our project could for instance benefit the wider research community with enhanced mathematical problem solving in areas which complement our work. Overall, the proposed project seeks ground-breaking research outcomes by addressing several fundamental problems in vehicle-centric transmission signal design and receiver processing. These will enable the improvements required for advanced applications to achieve the connected autonomous vehicle aspirations for future transportation systems.