A Critical Assessment of CV2X Resource Allocation Scheme for Platooning Applications

V2X stands for vehicular to everything communications, but its definition is so vast that it does not even encompass a specific transmission technology. Up to a few years ago the only standardized technology for V2X was 802.11p and the protocol suites built on top of like DSRC and ITS-G5. In recent years, however, Cellular-V2X defined both for LTE and for the upcoming 5G New Radio interfaces is drawing a lot of attention and seems to have a broader support from the automotive and telecom industry compared to 802.11p. C-V2X standardization however, has been slow, but most of all lacks the elegant simplicity of 802.11p, so that performance analysis of automotive applications on top of C-V2X are still very limited. This work presents initial results for platooning applications, highlighting the presence of severe impairments in the resource allocation schemes of C-V2X Out of Coverage modes that, if not corrected in future releases of the standards may hamper the development of this promising technology.