Improving the safety of autonomous driving by using Direct-to-Satellite connectivity: the case of Iridium and Starlink satellite constellations

This work highlights vehicular communications using satellite connectivity and presents the related results from the Celtic-Next 5G-SAFE-Plus project. Satellites are used by automated vehicles to send and receive relevant situational awareness data of the area and act according to the received information. We present a genuine system performance analysis utilising real V2X messages used by automated vehicles to send and receive relevant situational awareness data. This is the first work that presents real vehicular message transmission via a satellite network. We also define and implement a simulation framework to study how low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites could support the operations. As latency of the end-to-end communication link is one of the most important quality parameters for safe and connected driving, we present measurement results of Iridium and Starlink constellations for vehicular data transfer. The results suggest that satellite connectivity can be used to improve road safety. However, routing in satellite networks should be greatly improved.