Toward A Traffic Metaverse With Shared Vehicle Perception

The emergence of the Metaverse enables the creation of alternative spaces at the intersection between digital and physical through the replication of physical events and objects within physical-digital twins. In this article, we apply such twins to connected vehicles within a Traffic Metaverse as an intermediate platform for the shared perception of the road environment. The platform builds a real-time digital copy of the road conditions to serve vehicular applications on a city scale through ubiquitous sensing, reliable and low-latency communications, artificial intelligence, and extended reality. This article focuses on collaboratively building virtual 3D maps of road networks that provide road users with a pervasive view of the road conditions to increase situational awareness. Through vehicle-to-everything (V2X) cooperative perception, such a Metaverse platform expands the driver's visibility beyond the vehicle's line of sight. The platform also enables virtual remote access to monitor and forecast traffic ahead of space and time.