Is 5G a must for driver less cars to become a reality?

Many in the automation industry are under the impression that the reason we do not have auto pilot cars is due to the delay in deployment of 5G. The truth of the matter is that the necessary connectivity that today’s driver less cars require are already available through 4g technology.The proposed industry standards for automatic cars are divided into 5 levels.

Level 1: Is when the car can do certain functions like braking or slowing down when approached upon a car in front of you rapidly and lane change warnings if there is a car present.

Level 2: Is when the car is able to pull itself out of a garage or if you are able to move the car from your roof top to a parking spot behind you or in front of you. The Tesla models available today are able to do this and you can watch some funny videos that are all over youtube

Level 3: Is when the car can drive itself without no supervision to about 37mph but requires human touch above that speed

Level 4: Is when the autopilot can drive more then 37 miles/hour without any assistance with some supervision

Leve5: Is when complete autonomous vehicle operation that some predict could happen by 2028!

We are at level 2 with the latest Tesla Model3

Now the leading minds and manufacturers want the car to function as a stand alone entity when it comes to decision making. The car needs to act as close to what a human would do when presented with challenging situations. The processing power needs to reside onboard and the decision making must be done close to 2 ms is the current requirement. The 5G technology will require micro cells to be installed every 200-300 meters apart to encompass the whole country with millimeter waves that will be used to transmit data at data rats exceeding 400 M bytes/sec is the goal. With such speed in connectivity the computing required to connect with GPS and react to another vehicle traveling high speeds can be computed with great precision. But the redundancy is what will make this technology practical with the connectivity as a secondary control under the assumption that it could fail as any moment. Lives are at steak and room for error is very very minuscule.