South Korea tests self-driving cars on 5G network

South Korean researchers believe the next generation 5G data network will launch a revolution in driverless cars. 

The technicians believe 5G technology has the power and speed to smooth the way for computer-driven vehicles to avoid the problems that have so far hit the nascent business: accidents in particular.

They are presently testing the cars on the new data platform in a mock city. 

Bruce Harrison has this report for TRT World from Hwaseong.

What is 5G?

5G stands for the fifth generation of mobile network technology, which should begin rolling out for commercial use but 2020 in Asia and the United States.

Each generation has offered improvements in data transmission speed and capacity, and with 5G the networks are set to embed networked computing deeper in everyday life.

The internet of things

The much vaunted internet of things has so far been hobbled by the limitations of mobile networks, both in terms of transmission speeds of handsets and the fact that network backbones are not robust enough in many cases to carry the huge volumes of data.

With 5G, transmission speeds should accelerate sufficiently to allow for self-driving cars to take to the roads or for doctors to conduct operations remotely.

The technology is only the first step

Nevertheless, as critics point out, having the technology to do 'it' is one thing. Finding commercial applications is a second. Selling it to a sceptical public already scarred by the way high tech giants are encroaching on their privacy is a third. Broad social acceptance is a fourth. And finally what happens to your Alexa-driven fridge when the central server goes down at Amazon?