The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has issued a Sources Sought Notice for any organizations capable of providing services, resources, and/or facilities for testing emerging and future 5G new radio communications technologies for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) applications.
The move comes against the backdrop of last year’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling that not only would spectrum available for V2X in the 5.9GHz spectrum be more than halved, but DSRC would be phased out in favor of C-V2X (cellular-based vehicle-to-everything communications).
Part of the draft solicitation states: “As fifth generation (5G) new radio specifications are now becoming available and chipsets are anticipated to be in development, USDOT recognizes that the new radio technology and 5G architecture may offer transportation a wide range of opportunities that may advance current communications capabilities.
“Through review of the 5G specifications in development at the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP—an international telecommunications specifications development body) and other standards development organizations such as IEEE or others, USDOT recognizes a focus on a capability known as “sidelink” which is a device-to-device or V2X capability that leverages some of the new 5G new radio (5G NR) features to produce a 5G NR-V2X cooperative ITS capability.”
Interested parties can view the whole solicitation and the Sources Sought Notice 693JJ3-21-SS-0007 for further information.
Capability Statement responses must be submitted electronically to the US DOT using these two email addresses: Daniel.Confer@dot.gov and HCFA-23SRI@dot.gov. Type Sources Sought Notice 693JJ3-21-SS-0007 in the Subject line.
The USDOT further states: “The notice is issued solely for information, research, and planning purposes only and does not commit the government to any contract actions, solicitations, or contracts. The U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in responding to the Sources Sought Notice.
“Not responding to this Sources Sought Notice does not preclude participation in any future Request for Proposals that may be issued. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the U.S Government to form a binding contract.”
“Responses are due no later than April 19, 2021, at 12:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.”
