Advances in the automotive industry and the ever-increasing demand for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are pushing for a new epoch of networked wireless systems. Vehicular communications, or Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X), are expected to be among the main actors of the future beyond 5G and 6G networks. However, the challenging application requirements, the fast variability of the vehicular environment, and the harsh propagation conditions of high frequencies call for sophisticated control mechanisms to ensure the success of such a disruptive technology. While traditional Radio Access Networks (RAN) lack the flexibility to support the required control primitives, the emergent concept of Open RAN (O-RAN) appears as an ideal enabler of V2X communication orchestration. However, effectively integrating the two ecosystems is still an open issue. This paper discusses possible integration strategies, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of leveraging O-RAN to enable real-time V2X control. Additionally, we enrich our discussion with potential research directions stemming from the current state-of-the-art, and we provide preliminary simulation results that validate the effectiveness of the proposed integration.

翻译：汽车行业的进步与车联网（Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, CAVs）日益增长的需求，正推动无线网络系统迈入新时代。车辆通信（Vehicle-to-Everything, V2X）预计将成为未来5G演进和6G网络的主要应用场景之一。然而，严苛的应用需求、车载环境的高速动态变化以及高频段恶劣的传播条件，要求引入精密的控制机制以确保这一颠覆性技术的成功。传统无线接入网络（Radio Access Networks, RAN）缺乏支持所需控制原语的灵活性，而新兴的开放无线接入网（Open RAN, O-RAN）概念则成为实现V2X通信编排的理想使能者。然而，如何有效融合这两个生态系统仍是一个开放性问题。本文探讨了可能的集成策略，重点阐述了利用O-RAN实现实时V2X控制的挑战与机遇。此外，我们基于当前研究前沿提出了潜在的研究方向，并通过初步仿真结果验证了所提集成方案的有效性。