Enhanced 5g vehicle to vehicle technologies for safe and reliable connected autonomous vehicles applications
Connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) holds great potentials for road safety and efficiency, but two major barriers need to be removed before its potentials can be fully unleashed: significantly enhanced vehicle to vehicle (eV2V) services with millimetre wave (mmWave) communications and reliable cooperative perception with autonomous vehicles (AV) sensors. However, the directional connectivity of mmWave presents new challenges for the whole protocol stack of V2V networks, while reliable cooperative perception requires novel design of deep learning (DL) models for object detection and fusion of sensor data from neighbour AVs. The above challenges underpinned by CAV demand a holistic design and tight integration of connected vehicles (CV) and AV technologies. 
This innovative and multi-disciplinary project VESAFE will train the outstanding Fellow candidate to tackle the key challenges with complementary expertise and realize the full potentials of CAV. A novel cross-layer design is proposed for the research of 5th generation (5G) eV2V schemes with mmWave and reliable cooperative perception for advanced CAV safety applications: the eV2V schemes are AV oriented and greatly assisted by the AV cooperative perception, and the reliable cooperative perception is boosted by the awareness of V2V network conditions. And this project propose a novel integrated evaluation of 5G eV2V and CAV applications to support system design and performance characterization. Through the cutting-edge research, this innovative project will produce robust eV2V schemes and reliable cooperative perception solutions, make breakthrough on 5G V2V and CAV safety applications. It will significantly improve the Fellow’s employability and career prospects, strengthen knowledge transfer, boosting the research and innovation (R&I) capacity and research quality, therefore contributing to Europe’s competitiveness and growth in critical sectors of 5G/6G and AV.