The 5G NR Beamforming Grid for Next-Generation Electronic Toll Collection System

Abstract

The seamless wireless network enhances a smart city’s functionalities and connects devices across various vertical and horizontal industries. The Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) increases the feasibility of diverse applications among vehicles, infrastructure, and pedestrians. Although applications for vehicle-to-everything are widely discussed, the innovation for Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) systems has not been addressed. In this paper, we review the existing ETC systems of highway cases and assess the impact of upcoming pervasive Internet of Things (IoT) devices considering spectrum interference, availability, and expendability. Our approach leverages the features of bandwidth part, cell ID, and massive Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) beam ID from 5G New Radio (NR) to address the potential unlicensed frequency bands’ interference from an enormous number of IoT devices to the conventional ETC. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is interference resistant, positionable, service extendable, and can cater to the next generation ITS era.