Continental has developed a Predictive Connectivity Manager that “looks” into the future to determine network availability and reception quality along the route so that it can then take appropriate action.
The project is an evolution of the Smart Telematics solution that Continental developed together with Carnegie Technologies. With Smart Telematics, it is already possible to aggregate available communication channels to get more bandwidth or to seamlessly switch between the channels once the reception quality becomes poor.
The Predictive Connectivity Manager is an add-on to not only handle connectivity issues once they arise, but to develop intelligent data management and download strategies for a more anticipatory drive.
Crowd sourcing to determine network quality
To calculate the quality of reception along the road ahead, the connectivity manager collects data on the availability and quality of the communication channels from vehicles traveling along the same route, based on their current GPS position as well as what time and day of the week it is. This data is then processed and analyzed in the backend using Continental.cloud. The resulting database contains a range of data including information on signal strength, bandwidth, cellular standard and latency, as well as the cost of establishing a network connection at a specific position and the availability of different networks and providers.
Compensation for network outages to guarantee optimum user experience
If the connectivity manager sees that the connection along the road ahead is getting worse, or that network coverage will soon not be available, a number of possible actions may be taken. On the one hand, the software could alert the drivers of upcoming network outage and inform them when the connection will likely be available again. A digital assistant could even switch to another, data independent application instead.
On the other hand, the solution could prioritize between data intensive applications according to defined guidelines. It could temporarily provide the download of a software update with less bandwidth, for example, so that the current music stream is not interrupted. In addition, predictive channel management makes it possible to switch seamlessly between the various available channels depending on network quality and cost – from mobile networks, available WLAN hotspots in big cities or even satellite connection. In other words, if one channel offers better reception quality than another, the connectivity manager can switch between the networks.
Source: Continental
