Fed4FIRE+, the largest federation worldwide of Next Generation Internet (NGI) testbeds, has enriched its portfolio with The Smart Highway V2X testbed. Being part of the CityLab testbed, the Smart Highway testbed is a unique facility operated by imec, which is primarily designed for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication research. Located in Antwerp, Belgium, directly at the heart of Europe, the Smart Highway test site is built on top of a real highway and consists of a highway strip with Road Side Units (RSU) installed. This RSU is able to support V2X radio links, such as short-range based on ITS-G5 and C-V2X with PC5 interface working on 5.9 GHz, thus able to connect with cars having such radio access technologies. The long-range communication is based on 4G. Both commercial and software-defined radio (SDR) communication modules are integrated into the RSUs, so the experimenters can choose which modules they would like to use for testing.
For testing purposes, the team has one vehicle at its disposal, a BMW X5 xDrive25d LO with an automatic gearbox provided by the University of Antwerp. The vehicle is equipped with an Onboard Unit (OBU), power system and communication hardware compatible with the RSUs. The vehicle can be driven and used as a mobile node in a V2X context. Experimenters using the testbed get physical access to the vehicle and its OBU and can drive towards the location of the RSU. Moreover, access to OBU and RSU can be prepared remotely.
More information on the testbed and how to use it can be found here.
