BlackBerry has launched a security credential management system (SCMS) that will provide a mechanism for vehicles, infrastructure and traffic management centres to exchange information using digital certificates. It is based on BlackBerry’s own Certicom technology and offers a secure and reliable hosted public key infrastructure (PKI), managing certificates on behalf of an organisation or an entire ecosystem.
It has been designed to help the private and public sectors come together to accelerate the development of smart cities and intelligent transportation systems, and help build trust of information exchanged. The service is free of charge to automakers and public offices undertaking smart cities and connected vehicle pilots.
Roger Lanctot - Director automotive connected mobility at research and analytics firm Strategy Analytics - has heralded BlackBerry’s systems as a ‘major step forward’ in the support of smart cities and connected car developments.
“While regulators are still in the process of defining what such a system might look like and how it will be deployed, BlackBerry’s offering will allow for the testing of various concepts and technologies right away in support of inter-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure applications.”
The service is designed to scale to support national and transnational deployments, allowing OEMs and public officials to take advantage of a turnkey cloud-based service for vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) certificate issuance and lifecycle management. BlackBerry can also support hybrid SCMS solutions optimised for high-volume vehicle production. It has been interoperability tested in multiple OmniAir Consortium PlugFests held earlier this year.
Invest Ottawa will partner with the company in the first project using the new SCMS service. It will leverage it within a secure 16km road network that will criss-cross 4,200 acres and resembles a miniature city, complete with pavement markings, traffic lights, stop signs and pedestrian crosswalks all embedded with smart infrastructure designed to make use of AV generated data.
“We are delighted to partner with BlackBerry to demonstrate this SCMS service in a variety of V2X applications,” said Kelly Daize, director of the CAV programme at Invest Ottawa. “Our integrated public and private AV test tracks are equipped with GPS, DSRC, Wi-Fi, 4G/LTE and 5G, making this the first AV test environment of its kind in North America. We look forward to leveraging the world-class security and analytic capabilities of BlackBerry and making them available to innovators, firms, and regions to accelerate the secure deployment of AVs, intelligent transportation systems, and smart cities.”