Digital Infrastructure for Connected and Automated Vehicles

TL;DR

The paper addresses the gap in understanding digital infrastructure for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) by conducting a systematic literature review across vehicle-assist, roadside, and operational layers. It identifies key infrastructure components, such as V2X communications, high-resolution HD maps, V2I/V2V, and digital twins, and discusses regulatory, standardization, and security challenges that impede scalable deployment. The findings stress the need for cohesive policies, uniform standards, and robust cybersecurity, alongside the evolution of physical and operational networks to support platooning, car-sharing, and advanced traffic management. The work highlights the practical implications for policymakers and researchers aiming to realize safer, more efficient, and scalable CAV ecosystems.

Abstract

Connected and automated vehicles (CAV) are expected to deliver a much safer, more efficient, and eco-friendlier mobility. Being an indispensable component of the future transportation, their key driving features of CAVs include not only the automated functionality but also the cooperative capability. Despite the CAVs themselves are emerging and active research areas, there is a lack of a comprehensive literature review on the digital infrastructure that enables them. In this paper, we review the requirements and benefits of digital infrastructures for the CAVs including the vehicle built-in, roadside-based, operational and planning infrastructures. We then highlight challenges and opportunities on digital infrastructure research for the CAVs. Our study sheds lights on seamless integration of digital infrastructure for safe operations of CAVs.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: Different types of connected and automated vehicles.
• Figure 2: Digital infrastructure to support connected and automated vehicles.