ITG-Fachbericht 288: Mobilkommunikation, 15.– 16.05.

2019 in Osnabrück

C-V2X – A Communication Technology for

Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility
Ralf Weber¸, Jim Misener‡, Vince Park‡
¸
Qualcomm CDMA Technologies GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany
‡Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, USA

Abstract
The vehicular-to-everything (V2X) technologies are regarded as key technologies for vehicles to communicate
with each other and everything around them in order to support the introduction of intelligent transport systems
(ITS) as well as new capabilities for cooperative, connected and automated mobility (CCAM). As an interactive
communication system, V2X complements the capabilities of other autonomous driving assistance system
(ADAS) sensors. While traditionally, the IEEE 802.11p standard provided the foundation for basic safety applica-
tions, the new cellular V2X (C-V2X) standard established by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has
shown to provide improved range and reliability for enhanced safety services. The C-V2X basic functionality is
already defined in 3GPP Rel. 14. Its full potential can be exploited with 5G New Radio (NR) technologies which
will be introduced from 3GPP Rel 16 onwards. In this paper, we review the current C-V2X technology and provide
some outlook into envisioned use cases employing 5G NR, like perception and intention sharing as well as addi-
tional innovations that can be expected from connected cars.

1 Introduction coordinated by the network and the evolved Node-Bs

(eNBs) help to control the resource usage of each de-
In different regions of the world, there is a clear intent vice (“Mode 3”). It can be shown that the enhanced sig-
to foster cooperative intelligent transport systems (C- nal design and efficient resource allocation of PC5 can
ITS) as well as cooperative, connected and automated handle high density traffic and vehicles traveling at
mobility (CCAM) in order to reduce traffic accidents, high speeds.
congestion and air pollution (see e.g. [1]). V2X com-
munication is regarded as an essential technology that
can support this goal. This should not only include gen-
eral road users like passenger cars, trucks, motorcycles,
busses/coaches but also vulnerable road users (VRU)
like bicyclist, skaters and pedestrians.

As already introduced in [3,4], the 3GPP C-V2X stand-

ard [2] provides two different modes of communication
that can be applied for different use cases and are fur-
ther detailed in the subsections below.

Fig. 1 Overview of C-V2X PC5 links

1.1 V2X Direct communications
The direct communication mode allows direct ex-
change of real-time information between individual de-
vices over the short range PC5 interface (see Fig. 1),
e.g. on-board units (OBUs) and road side units (RSUs).
The PC5 interface is also often called ‘sidelink’ and is
designed to work in the ITS 5.9GHz band without net-
work assistance in an ad hoc manner through support
of autonomous, self-managed resource selection as
well as GNSS-based time synchronization. The ad hoc
mode is also known as “Mode 4” and supports SIM-
less operation, which does not require subscription
with a mobile network operator. 3GPP also defines a
second mode for the PC5 interface, where devices are
1.2 V2X Network communications
For long range communication over a wide area net-
work (WAN) employing commercial cellular licensed
spectrum, the Uu interface can be used (see Fig. 2).
Herewith, it is leveraging existing LTE infrastructure
with ubiquitous coverage to bring additional services,
which can make use of public or private cloud and
other infrastructure services, e.g. traffic management,
entertainment, comfort or emergency services. This
can provide new service opportunities for mobile net-
work operators (MNOs) on top of current basic safety
services. Combined evolved network bases stations

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 ITG-Fachbericht 288: Mobilkommunikation, 15.– 16.05.2019 in Osnabrück
(eNBs) and RSUs can bring additional business oppor-
tunities to MNOs and address major maintenance chal-
lenges for road operators.
Fig. 2 Overview of C-V2X Uu links
C-V2X is intended to complement the capabilities of
other ADAS sensors (e.g. cameras, RADAR, LIDAR)
and gives vehicles the ability to communicate with
each other (V2V), to pedestrians (V2P), to roadside in-
frastructure (V2I) and to a network (V2N). The com-
munication capabilities allow for diverse options to ex-
change information among and between road users,
traffic control centers, public and private cloud ser-
vices, as well as transport and emergency services.
2 Connectivity Options
The PC5 interface provides the base functionality for
C-V2X communication, which ensures that especially
safety related use cases can be operated without any
network coverage [4]. Further use cases can be envi-
sioned, where network communication can provide ad-
ditional services over longer distances.
Fig. 3 depicts some of the possible connectivity options
of C-V2X described in [5], which can benefit from ad-
vanced technologies including Multi Access Edge
Computing (MEC), network slicing and evolved Mul-
timedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS):
x Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V): Provides the basic
communication between cars employing PC5 in-
terface, which does not require a network connec-
tivity. This allows direct exchange of data between
cars, e.g. position, time, speed, heading, warning
information, as well as path trajectories. There is a
multitude of other data that could be exchanged
for particular use cases.
x Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) / Infrastruc-
ture-to-Vehicle (I2V): Provides communication
between vehicles, road side infrastructure and re-
lated services (e.g. traffic management centers,
traffic lights, road gantries etc). V2I and I2V use
cases are typically running under tight control of
regional authorities and do not involve open ac-
cess to mobility services (e.g. parking lot
search/assignment, green light speed advisory).
ISBN 978-3-8007-4961-4
x Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) / Network-to-Vehi-
cle (N2V): Provides general connectivity to ser-
vices via MNOs using the Uu interface. This com-
munication typically requires a subscription with
the MNO and/or service provider. In principal, a
communication between vehicles could also be
achieved by cascading V2N and N2V links. To re-
duce network related delays, MEC functions could
be used. However, due to the network inherent de-
lays, the Uu interface is not expected to be used
for highly latency critical safety applications but
more for less critical cloud and backend services
like dynamic High-Definition (HD) maps, soft-
ware updates, or traffic information.
x Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) / Infrastructure-
to-Pedestrian (I2P): Shall embed the pedestrians
and other VRUs like bicyclists, motorcyclists, etc.
The main goal is to include V2X functionality into
smartphones, which can be used to either ex-
change relevant information among/between other
road users or infrastructures.
Fig. 3: Examples of C-V2X connection options
Note that network connectivity could be established
over either LTE or 5G, where the applicable use cases
may require certain performance characteristics in
terms of throughput, latency and/or system capacity,
which are determined by the available Quality-of-Ser-
vice (QoS) mechanisms of the underlying network.
In order to deploy Real-Time Situational Awareness
and High Definition (Local) Map features, additional
information need to be fused from different sources to
accurately augment situational awareness. Dedicated
sensors from the car, e.g. coming from RADAR, LI-
DAR, Dead Reckoning or Visual Inertial Odometry
(VIO) systems, can support a 360-degree view of the
situational vicinity. The required access to cloud fea-
tures and high-performance data processing could be
accomplished by the road user devices individually,
taking also the received broadcast information from
other road users into account. As an alternative, the
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 ITG-Fachbericht 288: Mobilkommunikation, 15.– 16.05.2019 in Osnabrück

capabilities of edge computing could be used to offload
such tasks to the network, avoiding the need for local
processing and over-the-air transmission of large
amounts of similar data to many users.
3 Standardization Status
C-V2X access layer was finalized in 3GPP Rel. 14 end
of 2016 [2]. This release is also often denoted as LTE-
V2X. The protocol stack was already introduced in [4]
and shall only be briefly reviewed here.
For PC5 mode communication, the lower layers of the
communication stack were adapted from the Device-
to-Device (D2D) communication standard as part of
the ProSe services defined in 3GPP Rel.12 and Rel.13,
whereas the upper layers were adapted/reused from ex-
isting regional ETSI, ISO, and WAVE (IEEE and SAE)
standard families (see Fig. 4). This allows a one-to-one
mapping of the already existing and well-defined ap-
plications that were already developed for the IEEE
802.11p-based legacy systems and ensures interopera-
bility between the new C-V2X applications.
3GPP Rel. 15 was finalized in 2018, providing en-
hanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) features,
standalone (SA) and non-standalone network architec-
tures (NSA), the main enhancements for C-V2X, will
get introduced in 3GPP Rel. 16 with the standardization
of the New Radio (NR) interface, providing further en-
hanced Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication
(eURLLC). Currently, 5G NR C-V2X study items are
getting completed such that corresponding work items
can be started. The 5G NR C-V2X work items are ex-
pected by be finalized by end of 2019. As can be seen
from Fig. 5, the commercial product availability is ex-
pected around 1 year after the corresponding standard
release was finalized. E.g., products supporting 3GPP
Rel. 16 are expected to start deployment in 2021.

For Uu mode communication, the normal 3GPP Rel.

14 LTE stack is used for user equipment (UE) which is
represented by the OBU in the car with the correspond-
ing C-V2X system configurations [4].

In order to achieve technology agnostic upper layer

specifications, existing upper layer ETSI standards,
which were initially referring mainly to the legacy
IEEE 802.11p access layer, were amended by corre-
sponding specifications supporting also 3GPP Rel. 14
C-V2X [6-11]. At the time of writing this paper, these
specifications are already approved or in the final ap-
proval process.
Fig 5 depicts the envisioned 3GPP standard evolution
and commercialization of C-V2X towards 5G. While
Fig. 4: PC5 Protocol Stack (user plane)
It should be noted that existing basic safety use cases
originally using IEEE 802.11p access technology can
already be supported by LTE-V2X specified in 3GPP
Rel. 14. They will continue to be supported in the same
way by future C-V2X releases to maintain backward
compatibility. The latter is a prerequisite to allow road
users equipped with Rel. 14 devices to communicate

Fig. 5 Envisioned 3GPP standard evolution and commercialization of C-V2X towards 5G

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 ITG-Fachbericht 288: Mobilkommunikation, 15.– 16.05.2019 in Osnabrück
with road users equipped with newer C-V2X releases.
5G NR C-V2X of Rel. 16 and beyond is intended to
complement the capabilities of previous C-V2X re-
leases. Hence, use cases that are supported by a certain
3GPP release, will be anchored to this release. In the
future, any additional advanced use cases, which will
be designed for newer 3GPP releases, will be anchored
to the respective release. This ensures that devices de-
ployed for use cases of a given release can always com-
municate to devices supporting also later releases.
For example, while Rel. 14/15 devices only support
broadcast messages, Rel. 16 can also use multicast
messages employing acknowledgements and dynamic
road user grouping. For basic safety use cases that rely
on broadcast messages, only legacy LTE-V2X features
will be used, i.e. Rel. 14 is the use case anchor, whereas
advanced use cases, which require a more efficient PC5
link with optimized performance that is not supported
by Rel. 14, will then employ 5G NR features of higher
releases. For this, the latter use cases then get anchored
accordingly to the respective release going forward. In
that way, e.g. a device supporting Rel. 16 will use LTE-
V2X features for those use cases that are anchored to
Rel. 14.
4 Advanced Use Case Examples
In [4] we already introduced basic safety uses case ex-
amples that are currently implemented in C-V2X pilots
and trials. These are targeted as the so-called “Day 1”
use cases that are considered for first deployments in
Europe and other regions of the world [12]. They in-
clude mainly safety warning as well as traffic manage-
ment and advisory messages, e.g. dangerous situations,
hazards, roadworks, emergency breaks, speed advi-
sory, or VRU alert. Depending on the particular use
case, the message types are either Cooperative Aware-
ness Messages (CAM), Decentralized Notification
Messages (DENM), In-vehicle Information Messages
(IVIM) , Signal-Phase and Timing Messages (SPaTM)
or Map Messages (MAPM), which are broadcasted to
all road users. Common among all such “Day 1” use
cases is that they do not directly influence the driving
behavior of the vehicles and can be regarded more as
additional situational awareness information for the
drivers, so that they can take appropriate action, e.g. to
avoid any impact or improve driving comfort.
Fig. 6: Coordinated Driving use case example
ISBN 978-3-8007-4961-4
In the following, we exemplarily introduce two ad-
vanced use cases that can be enabled by 5G NR C-V2X
(see e.g. [13]). These use cases require more complex
decision processes, where additional information need
to be fused from different sensors in the car or from
external sources in real time. In addition, 5G NR C-
V2X can exploit bi-directional multicast communica-
tion with feedback to a target group of vehicles based
on the proximity to the host vehicle in order to better
coordinate the driving behavior among the road users.
The benefits provided are advanced safety features, re-
duced travel time and more efficient energy consump-
tion through increased situational awareness, intention
sharing and negotiation, as well as updates of the road
infrastructure and the traffic situation along the pro-
jected driving path. These features build the basis for
the evolution of current assisted driving applications
towards fully autonomous vehicles.
Coordinated Driving:
Fig 6. depicts a typical example of a coordinated driv-
ing scenario, where the (originating) host vehicle tries
to enter a road from an entrance ramp, while remote
vehicles are approaching on the road from behind. In
this scenario, the originating vehicle sends a lane
change request to the relevant target group which are
in proximity (1). The target group is identified based
on the distance to the originating vehicle and should
respond with a confirmation or denial to help the coor-
dination of the maneuver (2). Once the maneuver is ne-
gotiated, the originating host vehicle sends a lane pre-
pared (or abort) message to the target group, followed
by a coordinated lane change action of the involved ve-
hicles in the target area (3).
Sensor Sharing:
Sensor sharing can improve the situational awareness
in mixed scenarios with C-V2X enabled and non-C-
V2X enabled road users, as well as in areas of limited
C-V2X enabled road user penetration rate. Fig. 7
shows an example, where the sensors of a C-V2X ena-
bled vehicle detects other vehicles or objects at an in-
tersection, which are in the target area but do not sup-
port C-V2X (1). This vehicle can then inform another
C-V2X enabled vehicle about the situation (2). The
same sensor sharing principle could be used by a C-
V2X enabled road infrastructure or VRU at the inter-
section, which convey detected objects to a relevant
target group approaching the intersection.
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 ITG-Fachbericht 288: Mobilkommunikation, 15.– 16.05.2019 in Osnabrück

For better navigation, sensor information can also be
combined with dynamic high definition (HD) map data
in real time, e.g. to indicate a lane blocking due to road
works or unloading goods vehicles. Here, a combina-
tion between direct mode (PC5) and network commu-
nication (Uu) can provide longer range to support a
more efficient route planning to far distant road users.
could be observed, so long as LOS conditions could be
kept (~1.2 km). Again, the performance was only lim-
ited by the road traffic not allowing for higher speeds
and the morphology of the test area not providing
longer LOS range conditions.

Fig. 7: Sensor Sharing use case example

5 Performance Aspects
Fig. 8: LTE-V2X range test example [19]
While 5G NR C-V2X is still in the standardization pro-
cess, several simulative assessments as well as field tri-
als have already been conducted to assess the perfor-
mance of 3GPP Rel. 14 C-V2X (LTE-V2X) and com-
pared with IEEE 802.11p based systems [14-19]. There
have also been multiple LTE-V2X cross-vendor work-
shops and demonstrations [20-26], as well as an in-
teroperability test event [27], which showed the func-
tional capabilities, the superior performance and ma-
turity of the technology.

Of special interest for the C-V2X performance are the

communication range of the PC5 interface as well as
its usability at high vehicular speeds. Both aspects were
investigated as part of the ConVeX Project [19].

Fig. 8 exemplarily depicts the measured LTE-V2X

packet error rate (PER) of received CAM messages un-
der line-of-sight (LOS) conditions along a public road
using a single transmission antenna @ EIRP=24dBm.
The PER turned out to be zero for the most part of the
road up-to the maximum possible stretch of 1.2 km.
Similar results were confirmed in [21], where tests
were conducted on a race track. In both cases, the lim-
iting factor was the morphology, which did not allow
for LOS conditions of longer range. To assess the usa-
bility of the PC5 interface at high speeds, a drive route
along the A9 highway between Nuremberg and Munich
was selected, where two test vehicles were transmitting
CAM messages while approaching each other in a co-
ordinated manner at maximum possible vehicle speed
of up-to 240 km/h. Fig. 9 depicts the different vehicle
speeds, the vehicle distances, as well as the measured
PER of the two vehicles. It is apparent that even at rel-
ative speed up-to 430 km/h no performance impact Fig. 9: LTE-V2X high speed test example [19]

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 ITG-Fachbericht 288: Mobilkommunikation, 15.– 16.05.2019 in Osnabrück
It should be noted that 5G NR will build on the LTE-
V2X technology framework and is expected to provide
features to achieve even superior performance by
providing >20MHz bandwidth support, allowing dy-
namic reference signal allocations adapted for varying
speeds, as well as state-of-the-art LDPC/polar channel
coding.
6 Conclusions
In this paper, we highlighted some of the technical ben-
efits of C-V2X and how its evolution towards 5G NR
C-V2X can provide a path from basic safety use cases
to more advanced use cases that can foster assisted and
autonomous driving. We provided an outlook into ad-
vanced use cases for coordinated driving and sensor
sharing, which can be supported by 5G NR features.
While 3GPP LTE-V2X lower layer standardization was
completed already in 2016 [2], the corresponding
higher layer standards for the sidelink got completed
beginning of 2019 by amending existing ETSI stand-
ards [6-11]. 3GPP 5G NR C-V2X standards and use
cases are still under development and expected to be
finalized by end of 2019. Several field trials and demos
have already been conducted over the past to demon-
strate maturity and performance of LTE-V2X in real
environments. The field trials did not only show the su-
perior performance of C-V2X compared to IEEE
802.11p based systems but could also prove that relia-
ble communication is possible at high LOS ranges >1.2
km and relative speeds >430 km/h [19]. In all test sce-
narios, the morphology of the test areas determined the
availability of LOS conditions, which did not yet allow
to bring C-V2X to its limits.
Additional tests are considered in test areas which
could provide longer LOS ranges and even higher
speeds. As soon as 5G NR C-V2X enabled devices are
available, further investigations are planned to assess
its performance and to demonstrate the applicability for
the envisioned advanced use cases.
7 References
[1] European Commission Directive 2010/40/EU
[2] 3GPP, “Initial Cellular V2X standard completed”, Release 14
Initial C-V2X Specification, Sept. 26, 2016
[3] 5GAA, “The Case for Cellular V2X for Safety and Coopera-
tive Driving”, White paper, Nov. 23, 2016
[4] Weber, R.; Misener, J; “Cellular V2X for Safety and Cooper-
ative Driving of Intelligent Transport Systems”, Proceedings
of 23th ITG/VDE Conference on Mobile Communications,
Osnabrueck, May 16-17, 2018
[5] 5GAA, “Towards fully connected vehicles: Edge Computing
for advanced automotive communications”, White Paper, Dec
2017
ISBN 978-3-8007-4961-4
[6] ETSI TS 102 636-7-1, “ETSI TS 102 636-7-1 V1.1.1 (2019-
01) ITS; Veh. Comm.; GeoNetworking; Part 7: Amendments
for LTE-V2X; Sub-part 1: Amendments to ETSI EN 302 636-
4-1 (Media-Independent Functionality)”
[7] ETSI TS 102 636-7-2, “ITS; Veh. Comm.; GeoNetworking;
Part 7: Amendments for LTE-V2X; Sub-part 2: Amendments
to ETSI EN 302 636-5-1 (Basic Transport Protocol)”
[8] ETSI TS 103 613, “ITS; Access layer specification for Intel-
ligent Transport Systems using LTE Vehicle to everything
communication in the 5,9 GHz frequency band”
[9] ETSI TS 103 574, “ITS; Congestion Control Mechanisms for
the C-V2X PC5 interface; Access layer part”
[10] ETSI EN 302 637-2 v.1.4.0, “ITS; Veh. Comm.; Basic Set of
Applications; Part 2: Specification of Cooperative Awareness
Basic Service”
[11] ETSI EN 302 637-3 v1.3.0, “Draft ETSI EN 302 637-3 V1.3.0
(2018-08) ITS; Veh. Comm,; Basic Set of Applications; Part
3: Specifications of Decentralized Environmental Notification
Basic Service”
[12] ETSI TR 102 638 V1.1.2, “ITS; Veh. Comm.; Basic Set of
Applications; Definitions”, 2015
[13] Patil S.; “5G NR C-V2X: Unleashing A Paradigm Shift in Au-
tomotive Use Cases”, TU Automotive Webinar, April 3, 2019
[14] 3GPP TR 36.885, “Study on LTE-based V2X Services”,
3GPP Rel. 14 Technical Report, June 2016
[15] 3GPP R1-163032, “Details of sensing for V2V”, 3GPP TSG-
RAN WG1 #84bis, Busan, South Korea, April 2016
[16] Sorrentino, S., “3GPP LTE Enhancements for V2V and Com-
parison to IEEE 802.11p”, Proceedings of 11th ITS European
Congress, Glasgow, Scotland, 2016
[17] 3GPP R1-161132, “V2V system level performance”, 3GPP
TSG-RAN WG1 #84, St. Julian’s, Malta, February 2016
[18] Shimizu, T. et al., “Preliminary Comparison of Suitability of
DSRC and LTE-V2X for V2V Safety Applications”, Proceed-
ings of 23th ITS World Congress, Melbourne, 2016
[19] ConVeX Project - convex-project.de
[20] Qualcomm, “Groupe PSA and Qualcomm advance C-V2X
testing for communication between vehicles”, Feb. 21, 2018
[21] FierceWireless, “NTT Docomo, Ericsson and Qualcomm to
carry out C-V2X Trails in Japan”, Press Release, Jan. 12, 2018
[22] Qualcomm, “Qualcomm and Ford Collaborate on C-V2X
Global Initiative to Improve Vehicle Safety, Traffic Effi-
ciency and Support for Autonomous Driving”, Press Release,
January 9, 2018
[23] 5GAA, “C-V2X Workshop and Demonstration for North
American Transportation Planning and North American Road
Operators”, Washington, USA, April 26, 2018
[24] 5GAA, “C-V2X Workshop and Demonstration”, Paris,
France, July 10, 2018,
[25] Qualcomm, “C-V2X cars hit the streets on select roads in the
U.S. and Europe”, CES, Feb 20, 2019
[26] ConVeX, “World’s First Multi-Country Cross-Border C-
V2X Demonstration Across Europe”, April 3, 2019
[27] 5GAA, “First dedicated C-V2X Interoperability Test in Eu-
rope proves exceptional level of interoperability”, Press Re-
lease, Klettwitz, Germany, April 15, 2019
116 © VDE VERLAG GMBH  Berlin  Offenbach