University of Delaware’s CAR Lab and Unex Technology Partner to Validate Low-Latency Vulnerable Road User Safety Over Private 5G
CAR Lab is validating baseline low-latency performance of Unex’s V2Xcast® software and SOM-352 V2X module, paired with an NVIDIA Jetson edge-compute host, across its Mobile Intersection Prototype and UD’s private 5G network on the STAR Campus
The University of Delaware’s Connected and Autonomous Research Laboratory (CAR Lab) and Unex Technology Corporation today announced a collaboration to validate sub-second Vulnerable Road User (VRU) safety alerts delivered directly to smartphones over private 5G.
Unex is equipping the CAR Lab with its V2Xcast® software framework and SOM-352 V2X module as part of its Global Academic Sponsorship Program. The CAR Lab is integrating Unex’s V2X standardization stack, based on SAE J2735, through a USB Type-C interface with its Mobile Intersection Prototype, an NVIDIA Jetson-based platform.
The approach responds to a well-documented limitation in onboard vehicle safety systems: AAA’s 2025 testing1 found automatic emergency braking still struggles to detect pedestrians at night, even in current-model-year vehicles. By pushing VRU alerts through the network directly to a pedestrian’s or cyclist’s phone — rather than relying solely on a vehicle’s onboard cameras and radar — the architecture aims to close that gap regardless of lighting or sensor line-of-sight.
The work will run within the CAR Lab’s D-STAR private 5G testbed at the University of Delaware, with the goal of establishing a technical blueprint telecom operators can use to deliver real-time, network-wide road-safety services directly to mobile subscribers, designed to eliminate traditional cloud-latency bottlenecks.
https://www.ace.aaa.com/automotive/advocacy/pedestrian-detection-study-2025.html
About the CAR Lab
The Connected and Autonomous Research Laboratory (CAR Lab) at the University of Delaware was founded in 2017 by Professor Weisong Shi, an IEEE Fellow. The CAR Lab designs and validates enabling technologies for connected and autonomous systems — including real-time operating systems, edge computing and C-V2X communication — and operates the D-STAR Living Lab in partnership with organizations including Arm, the Autoware Foundation, GM, Meta, Tier IV, Toyota and Western Digital. Learn more at thecarlab.org.
About Unex Technology Corporation
Unex Technology Corporation, headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, designs V2X communication hardware and software for automotive, smart infrastructure and intelligent transportation applications, including its V2Xcast® software framework and its System-on-Module (SOM). V2Xcast® supports both DSRC and C-V2X communication standards through a unified API. Learn more at unex.com.tw.