5G reaching out to all vertical sectors in Europe with 5G PPP phase 2 projects
5G will be instrumental in digitising the traditional industry as it races for better productivity and competitiveness. Creating synergies across verticals, lowering individual costs via network slicing, and cost-sharing on infrastructure deployment and service operations are all possible with 5G.
Leading vertical industrials are involved from the beginning of the 5G standardisation process. Phase 2 projects are dedicated to an industrial sector or target applications for various verticals.
Obviously, 5GCAR is THE phase 2 project dedicated to the automotive industry.
Main objectives within the 5GCAR project are:
Develop an overall 5G system architecture providing optimized end-to-end V2X network connectivity for highly reliable and low-latency V2X services, which supports security and privacy, manages quality-of-service and provides traffic flow management in a multi-RAT and multi-link V2X communication system.
Interworking of multi-RATs that allows embedding existing communication solutions and novel 5G V2X solutions.
Develop an efficient, secure and scalable sidelink interface for low-latency, high-reliability V2X communications.
Propose 5G radio-assisted positioning techniques for both vulnerable road users and vehicles to increase the availability of very accurate localization.
Identify business models and spectrum usage alternatives that support a wide range of 5G V2X services.
Demonstrate and validate the developed concepts and evaluate the quantitative benefits of 5G V2X solutions using automated driving scenarios in test sites.
There are six levels of automation with respect to how a driving system works in dynamic driving tasks on a sustained basis:
Zero automation. Drivers continuously perform all dynamic driving tasks.
Driving assistance. Drivers monitor and intervene in all driving tasks; an individual task is automated by an assistance system, such as acceleration, automatic braking or adaptive cruise control.
Partial automation. Drivers intervene in all driving tasks; multiple driving tasks are automated, such as traffic jam assist, adaptive cruise control and lane monitoring for the control of steering and speed.
Conditional automation. Drivers can hand over the situation-monitoring and dynamic driving tasks to an automated system, only responding to a request when the car recognises its performance limit, such as highway or intersection autopilot.
High automation. Drivers can fully handover the situation-monitoring and dynamic driving tasks to an automated system in certain driving cases, such as automated urban driving.
Full automation. Cars perform all dynamic driving tasks in all driving cases as if a human.
Note that these six levels do not imply any particular sequence of market introduction, nor a linear progression on a step-by-step basis.
Only Tesla Motors currently provides a self-driving vehicle (as of late 2016). Some forerunners have already introduced several features of level 3 driving by 2016. For all others, the timeline is not before 2021.
Autonomous cars adoption will be driven by an increase in urbanisation. This market will also benefit significantly from different regulations around the world promoting greater road safety.
However, many issues remain unsolved: Who will pay the extra costs for both the car and the infrastructure? Who will be responsible in case of an accident? On top of that, adoption is not guaranteed: 96% of people still want to have a steering wheel plus accelerator (gas) and brake pedals available even if their vehicles were self-driving.
Recent trial: In January 2017, Orange, Ericsson, Qualcomm and PSA Group signed a partnership agreement to drive 5G technology for automotive applications, focused on “Vehicle-to-Vehicle” (V2V) and “Vehicle-to-Everything” (V2X) architecture. Initial tests will use an end-to-end architecture system based on LTE technology before evolving to LTE-Vehicle and 5G technologies.
8K UHD, VR, MR
5G-Xcast is focused on Broadcast and Multicast Communications Enablers for 5G Systems. It will devise, assess and demonstrate a conceptually novel and forward-looking 5G network architecture for large scale immersive media delivery.
The concept of VR is one the media and entertainment’s main issues. It has existed for many years, but recent technological advances in miniaturisation of electronic equipment and components have accelerated research and development of VR technology.
For both VR and MR, the user experience is fundamental to the success of this market.
The VR market faces many challenges in the short term. The four sides of the VR market, and by extension that of MR, are (a) powerful processing and rendering device, (b) headset, (c) digital distribution platform, and (d) catalogue of content (games and/or videos). They all have different life cycles, must rely on different partnerships, and have their own yet overlapping business models.
Mass public adoption of VR is likely to depend on technological progress in the following areas; otherwise users will experience poor immersion:
• processing power,
• Resolution and field of view
• Connectivity
• VR dedicated controllers
• Tracking (motion tracking and eye tracking)
Recent trial: In April 2017, Finnish operator Elisa and Nokia announced the completion of a European test of pre-standard 5G technology using the 3.5GHz band. In a joint press release, the companies said the trial, held in Rusko, Finland, achieved speeds multiple times higher than commercial 4G networks. At its peak, data speeds reached 1.5Gb/s with a minimum recorded latency of 1.5 milliseconds. The trial was a continuation of 5G testing carried out in 2016, when the pair tested the remote control of robots and 360-degree video streaming.
SDN-NFV
5G Media aims at investigating how these applications and underlying 5G networks should be coupled and interwork to the benefit of both: to ensure the applications allocate the resources they need to deliver high quality of experience and so that the network is not overwhelmed by media traffic.SDN and NFV are key enablers in the transformation of telco networks, bringing automation. The two independent concepts are often complementary.
What is SDN – Software Defined Network? Concept based on the separation of the control plane and data plane of networkarchitecture. Allowing the introduction of programmability. SDN architecture built around a centralised control layer, using control software: the SDN controller (allowing automation of network orchestration)
What is NFV – Network Functions Virtualisation? Initiative taken by a group of major telcos within the ETSI. Concept to virtualise, i.e. implement in software form network functions using standardised servers (that currently operate on proprietary hardware) Creation of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that can be instantiated and managed easily
Four categories of benefits identified:
Initial motivations were driven by the notion of network cost control (capex reduction), but it becoming less of a priority
Shift to a strong interest in operational gains
Accelerated time to market for services and applications
Agility and scalability of the network faced with the pressure of traffic demand
Support for new services and new business models
Gains in network operations from automation, arising from the ability to:
Manage network configurations without needing access to the physical equipment;
Avoid having to perform repeated actions on different equipment;
Avoid deploying new and dedicated hardware to launch new services;
Dynamically add programming functions to the networks;
Upgrade functions simply and instantly.
Strong acceleration of the time to market of services: Time reduction from months to days
Smart Energy as a Service
The NRG-5 project is THE phase 2 project dedicated to energy utilities. It will deliver a compliant, decentralized, secure and resilient framework, with highly availability, able to homogeneously model and virtualize multi-homed, static or moving, hardware constrained (smart energy) devices, edge computing resources and elastic virtualized services over communications’ and energy utilities’ infrastructures.
The ultimate project objective is to make the deployment, operation and management of existing and new communications and energy infrastructures (in the context of the Smart Energy-as-a-Service) easier, safer, more secure and resilient from an operational and financial point of view.
Furthermore, NRG-5 will investigate on extensive modelling and virtualization of electricity and gas infrastructure assets combined with the telecommunications infrastructure covering the full spectrum of the communication and computational needs.
Smart Cities
5GCITY is THE phase 2 project dedicated to cities. The ultimate goal of 5GCity is to maximize the return on investment for the whole digital market chain (users, application, cloud providers, i.e., the municipalities themselves, telecom providers, and infrastructure providers).
To do so, 5GCity’s main aim is to build and deploy a common, multi-tenant, open platform that extends the (centralized) cloud model to the extreme edge of the network, with a demonstration in three different cities (Barcelona, Bristol and Lucca), and thus advance the state of the art to solve the main open research challenges in the 5G-based edge virtualization domain, including the neutral host perspective in dense deployment environments such as cities. Thus, 5GCity will design, develop, deploy and demonstrate, in operational conditions, a distributed cloud and radio platform for municipalities and infrastructure owners acting as 5G neutral hosts.
Recent trial: In March 2017, TIM disclosed its plans to turn Turin into Italy’s first 5G city. To get the project underway, TIM has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the municipality of Turin. TIM plans to begin conducting 5G technology trials in 2018. The first will involve 3,000 users, who will be able to access an array of smart city services over the new network.
Ultrafast broadband, video content, the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence…: where is the money going?
4th Global 5G Event
Seoul, South Korea- November 22-24
“5G Accelerating The 4th Industrial Revolution”
Political and industrial review on 5G
FANTASTIC5G@SSPC
Singapore – December 4-8
Get a comprehensive coverage of signal processing methodologies, theories and practices in prevalent and next-generation communication systems and networks.
5G for Automotive
Cologne, Germany – December 12-14
The 5G for Automotive conference is one of the largest event for autonomous driving. Among other things, sessions and workshops will deal with the role of semiconductors in the scope of 5G technology, the potential of 5G from an OEMs perspective.
WCNC’18 is seen as a major dissemination opportunity for 5G PPP phase 2 projects. Three phase 2 projects will be present @WCNC’18 and call for papers:
ONE-5G, 5G-XCast and 5G-Transformer. 5G-CORAL as complementary 5G project will also be there. One5G and 5G-Xcast are co-organizing a joint workshop on cm-wave and mm-wave based communications for 5G Networks (CmMmW5G). 5G-TRANSFORMER co-organises the First Workshop of COntrol and Management of network slices for VERTicals (COMVERT). At last, 5G-CORAL co-organises the First International Workshop on Edge and Fog Systems for 5G & Beyond (IWEF).
Obviously, 5GCAR is THE phase 2 project dedicated to the automotive industry.
5G-Xcast is focused on Broadcast and Multicast Communications Enablers for 5G Systems. It will devise, assess and demonstrate a conceptually novel and forward-looking 5G network architecture for large scale immersive media delivery.
5G Media aims at investigating how these applications and underlying 5G networks should be coupled and interwork to the benefit of both: to ensure the applications allocate the resources they need to deliver high quality of experience and so that the network is not overwhelmed by media traffic.SDN and NFV are key enablers in the transformation of telco networks, bringing automation. The two independent concepts are often complementary.
The NRG-5 project is THE phase 2 project dedicated to energy utilities. It will deliver a compliant, decentralized, secure and resilient framework, with highly availability, able to homogeneously model and virtualize multi-homed, static or moving, hardware constrained (smart energy) devices, edge computing resources and elastic virtualized services over communications’ and energy utilities’ infrastructures.
5GCITY is THE phase 2 project dedicated to cities. The ultimate goal of 5GCity is to maximize the return on investment for the whole digital market chain (users, application, cloud providers, i.e., the municipalities themselves, telecom providers, and infrastructure providers).
Barcelona, Spain – April 15-18, 2018
