Challenges of Autonomous Vehicle’s Networking

RELIABILITY
Safety is a top priority in autonomous vehicles applications, any interruption of this service is not acceptable, including networking transmission. If the network were to go down, all the vision and sensor connections would fail. This could cause serious safety issues. Thus, it is important to build a rugged and reliable networking environment.

BANDWIDTH & SPEED
The bandwidth capacity is critical. All the data is transmitted in real-time, including the 8K panoramic vision data. Any lack of bandwidth will result in missing or an interruption of vision data for human-less driving. With all the sensors and vision system sending a vast amount of data around the network this requires a huge bandwidth capability, this is required to create a seamless imaging system for the autonomous vehicle, one other parameter also needs to be considered is the speed of the network.

POWER OVER ETHERNET
More and more devices are supporting Power over Ethernet (PoE) now, including the sensors and cameras installed on autonomous vehicles. This standardized technology integrates the Ethernet data transmission and power supply into one single Ethernet cable, this has the following advantages, reduced cabling, reduced component count, reduced installation time and reduced maintenance.

COMPATIBLE WITH VEHICLE’S POWER SUPPLY
12V/24V power supply is commonly seen on autonomous vehicles and other vehicles. Any devices powered by the vehicle should be able to accept 12V/24V power input and function well under heavy load, low voltage & changing conditions.