Autonomous driving has many building blocks. A very important component is telematics.
Strictly speaking, autonomous driving only means that the car or vehicle moves by itself. That can already be found in the word automobile. It’s just that it doesn’t just drive itself, i.e. it’s motorized, it steers the car itself. But that requires an ecosystem of subsystems.
It first needs the eyes and ears of the vehicle so that it can find its way around. It needs them card data, it needs the information about that topography, the other vehicles and it needs to know what it all means. A key technology for this is telematics. It is a mixture of telecommunications and computer science. I also like to talk about it Networking, because telematics makes you part of something larger.
The transfer of data not only helps to obtain the necessary data. It allows a kind of swarm intelligence in which data is retrieved and added. This is currently particularly at fleets relevant. Because telematics can be used to find better ways. An algorithm can choose the best route between different points. The technology has also been copied from nature. the Ant Strategy was the focus of discussion for a while. How to find the fastest possible route. But it’s not just about speed, it’s also about effectiveness. Which route uses the least fuel? A facility that recently also Google Maps offers.
When it comes to telematics, low latency is critical. The lower the latency, i.e. the break in transmission, the better. Here should 5G play an important role. A cellular network that transmits high data rates with low latency. But the research is already further and is already working on it 6G.
Last but not least, the telematics also serve the effective use of the vehicles. Sensors can be used to monitor vehicle wear and intervene in good time before the damage increases. This strategy also led to the consideration of skateboards, i.e. mobile substructures that are durable. The structure can be changed as required. In this way, telematics also has an impact on vehicle construction itself.