What Are Vehicular and Wireless Technologies?

Vehicular and wireless technologies are the systems and engineering disciplines concerned with the propulsion, communication, and control of vehicles and with the wireless networks that connect them to each other, to infrastructure, and to broader data networks. The field encompasses electric and conventional propulsion engineering, the physical and protocol layers of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, the design of in-vehicle networks, and the integration of advanced wireless standards into transportation systems. As vehicles become increasingly electrified and data-intensive, the boundary between vehicular engineering and wireless communications engineering has narrowed substantially.

The discipline draws on electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, RF and antenna design, control theory, and network protocol design. Research spans high-voltage power electronics for traction systems, sub-nanosecond radio timing for precision ranging, and multi-layer protocol stacks for safety-critical message exchange.

V2X Communication and Vehicular Networks

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication encompasses vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P), and vehicle-to-network (V2N) data exchange. The primary purpose is to extend each vehicle's situational awareness beyond the range of its onboard sensors by sharing position, speed, heading, and hazard data with nearby road users. Two competing V2X radio standards have been deployed: DSRC, based on IEEE 802.11p and the WAVE (Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments) protocol stack standardized around 2010, and cellular V2X (C-V2X), specified in 3GPP Release 14 and extended in Release 16 for 5G NR sidelink. Both operate in the 5.9 GHz band, though regulatory proceedings in the United States, Europe, and Asia have allocated portions of that band differently between the two technologies. Vehicular networks face unique challenges: high node mobility, rapidly changing topology, and the need for single-digit millisecond latency for safety-critical messages such as forward-collision warnings.

Propulsion Systems

Propulsion systems for road and rail vehicles span internal combustion engines, hybrid electric architectures, battery electric drivetrains, and fuel cell systems. In hybrid vehicles, a power split device or parallel hybrid topology allows the internal combustion engine and electric motor to share the load, with the control strategy optimizing fuel economy over the drive cycle. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) use multi-phase permanent magnet synchronous motors or induction motors driven by silicon carbide (SiC) inverters, which achieve higher switching frequencies and lower conduction losses than silicon IGBT-based inverters. SiC device adoption in EV powertrains has grown rapidly since Tesla introduced SiC MOSFETs in the Model 3 inverter in 2017. Research on wide-bandgap semiconductor applications in vehicle powertrains appears in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

Railguns and Electromagnetic Launch

Electromagnetic launch systems, including railguns and coilguns, accelerate a projectile or payload using magnetic forces rather than chemical propellants. A railgun passes a large current through conducting rails and a conductive armature bridging them; the Lorentz force on the armature accelerates the projectile to velocities of 2–3 km/s, well above the 1–1.7 km/s typical of conventional artillery. The principal engineering challenges are the enormous peak currents required (on the order of megaamperes), rail erosion from the arc at the rail-armature interface, and the design of compact pulsed-power supplies capable of storing and releasing megajoules in milliseconds. The U.S. Navy conducted railgun demonstrator tests at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, achieving muzzle energies of 32 MJ in tests conducted before the program was restructured.

Rockets and Launch Vehicles

Rockets generate thrust by expelling high-velocity exhaust mass, operating without an external medium and therefore functioning in vacuum. Rocket propulsion fundamentals are governed by the rocket equation, which relates the mass ratio of a vehicle to the velocity change achievable given a specific impulse. Chemical rockets using liquid or solid propellants dominate current launch vehicles; electric propulsion systems, including ion thrusters and Hall-effect thrusters, provide high specific impulse for in-space maneuvering and station-keeping on satellites.

Applications

Vehicular and wireless technologies have applications in a wide range of fields, including:

• Cooperative adaptive cruise control and platooning on highways
• Intersection management and traffic signal coordination via V2I
• Electric bus and truck fleet management with wireless charging coordination
• Autonomous agricultural and mining vehicle operations
• Satellite and spacecraft propulsion using electric thrusters
• Emergency vehicle preemption and priority signaling at intersections