From the speedway to your driveway

Outside of racing, you may be wondering if these technologies have any real-world applications. Consider the “trickle-down effect.” Just about every piece of automotive tech you use in your car got its start in auto racing.

While Wi-Fi connectivity has found its way into commercially available cars, 802.11ad via the 60-GHz band has not... yet. The technology and its hardware first needs to be tested in extreme and unforgiving environments before it can be expected to endure years of use (and abuse) in consumers' cars. And what better place than the F1 arena, where there’s more data being downloaded in a few hours than most of us will need in a week. And the hardware is subjected to the elements: the extreme heat of Abu-Dhabi, the humidity of Malaysia, the rain at Silverstone, the physical structure density at Monaco, the heavy radio-traffic of fans in the U.S., and more.

Because of its ultra-fast speeds, which allow for simultaneous 4K video streaming to multiple devices and lag-free screen mirroring between smartphones and in-car displays, 802.11ad is expected to emerge as the “go-to” for automotive infotainment. The 60-GHz band is high-frequency millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum band. Such bands are the stepping stone to 5G and provide huge bandwidth for delivering multi-Gbps data rates.

The learnings from the Qualcomm/Mercedes development phase will certainly accelerate the arrival of 802.11ad Wi-Fi for everyday users and contribute to the evolution of 5G connectivity.