Pioneering 5G ‘New Thinking’ project wins £5 million government funding

An innovative project in which Strathclyde is a principal partner has received £5 million in funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The 5G New Thinking project will look at the provision of mobile and wireless connectivity using the shared spectrum and local spectrum licencing options announced by Ofcom in July 2019. Working closely with communities, the project will develop a community toolkit to allow the creation of networks that provide rural connectivity for cooperatives of consumers, local enterprise, councils and other stakeholders.  

5G rollout In its first stage the project will create models, strategies and use case demonstrators on the Orkney Islands network, and engage with community and council partners in Scotland, Northern Ireland and areas of rural England to help develop and ultimately roll-out 5G connectivity. The project is one of seven 5G research and development projects across the UK to win funding a combined £30 million of funding following the Rural Connected Communities (RCC) competition.

Dez O’ Connor, Cisco and Chief Technologist of the 5G New Thinking Project, said: “We’re excited to be working on this new and ambitious rural connected community project with DCMS. “The new project, 5G New Thinking, aims to showcase the benefits of 5G rural connectivity and sustainability. Cisco and its partners are bringing forward extensive knowledge from recent projects, including 5G RuralFirst based in Orkney, Somerset and Shropshire. “We’re pleased to be working again with principal partner, University of Strathclyde, and others including BBC R&D, CloudNet IT Solutions, and also new partners."

Other key project partners also include the Faroese Telecom/SHEFA, Scotland 5G Centre, Federated Wireless, and Pure Leapfrog, alongside civic partners from Orkney, Borderlands, the Rural Community Network and 5G use case partners, the Universities of Glasgow and Surrey, and Bogons, Agri-Epi and the Zoetis. Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “We’re determined to make the UK a world-leader in 5G and deliver on our promise to improve connections for people and businesses across the country.

Source: University of Strathclyde

Ericsson and Audi use 5G to revolutionise automation in smart factories

Taking factory automation to the next level Partnering with Audi has allowed us to push the boundaries of 5G technologies for automation applications in smart factories, with 5G Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) delivering the strict latency and reliability demands of industrial automation.

The manufacturing industry is evolving fast, and industry leaders such as Audi are searching for ways to stay ahead in their factories with increased flexibility in the production automation and assembly processes while also reducing personnel safety risks. Ericsson and Audi have been collaborating to expand the horizons of tomorrow’s factories with 5G technologies. Following on from the first announced their collaboration to pioneer 5G for automotive manufacturing in August 2018 and from previous developments with both Audi and SICK, where we introduced safe AGV operation over a 5G network, we’ve now taken factory automation over a wireless network to the next level with 5G URLLC – 5G Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication.

Running the industry standard and protocols for automation communications as PROFINET RT and PROFIsafe, 5G URLLC delivers very low latency and strict latency bounds with required guarantee levels to avoid triggering safety stops in the system. This is of great significance for the industrial automation  industry, as it opens the door for safe human-robot interaction, which was previously only possible over a wired network. Cutting the cables is the real game changer in enabling Industry 4.0. This is one of a range of activities that Ericsson has been working on together with Audi, to explore the potential of 5G as a future-proof communication technology that can meet the high demands of automotive production.

Demonstrating the power of 5G URLLC

Ericsson and Audi have successfully tested the 5G URLLC capabilities with real-life industrial automation applications at the Ericsson’s factory lab in Kista in January, 2020. In the latest demo showcasing the power of 5G URLLC, we together have built a robot cell similar to those operating in Audi factories today, but over 5G connectivity. The arm of the robot is building part of a steering wheel, in this case an airbag, whilst a laser curtain protects the open side of the robot cell. We are showing an example to transport safety protocols, the underlying mechanisms need to be very stable and reliable, and that is what 5G URLLC brings. Thanks to the ultra-low latency and reliability of 5G URLLC, if a factory worker reaches into the cell the robot will instantly stop, making it safe for personnel not to be harmed whilst working with the machines. This instant response with guaranteed reliability is not possible through traditional Wi-Fi or previous-generation mobile networks, meaning that these machines have historically required restrictive wired technology.

5G URLLC and the factory of the future

Freeing automated machines from wires significantly increases the flexibility, mobility and efficiency of a production line, as robot cells using a wired network connection are restricted in terms of where they can be placed on the factory floor. With 5G URLLC, these machines require only a power connection, usually available anywhere in a factory, meaning the production setup can easily be changed and units moved around on a day-to-day basis to maximize efficiency. Collaborations like this are essential for the developing the factory of the future. By partnering with manufacturers like Audi, we are able to develop technologies like 5G URLLC based on and optimized for real-world requirements, and our partners have an opportunity to shape the future of their industry.

Source: Ericsson

Could FWA be the answer to keeping people connected during the global pandemic?

By James Bristow, SVP EMEA, Cradlepoint

Fixed Wireless Access’s speed and flexibility could have it serve a crucial role in helping businesses and public services rebuild in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, writes James Bristow, SVP EMEA, Cradlepoint

In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, it’s important to step back and recognise the huge effort being made to limit its potential for disruption. To give a few examples from the United Kingdom, British Gas is using its logistics network to deliver supplies to food banks, while teachers are using empty classrooms for design and technology lessons to make face shields for NHS workers. It’s clear that while the pandemic is undoubtedly causing devastation, it has unleashed a wave of compassion, collaboration and innovation. Combined with our ability to communicate with one another in today’s technology-driven world, these factors make us all the more resilient. Many aspects of daily life have been able to continue while respecting all-important social distancing, thanks in part to the ability to stay connected with family and friends, remain up to date with the latest news and government advice, or work remotely from home. But whilst things are changing constantly, getting everyone and everything connected can still be a challenge. Here we look at some of the examples of where the flexibility of fixed wireless access (FWA ), which provides internet access to homes using wireless mobile network technology rather than fixed lines, can help to overcome the barriers caused by COVID-19. Pop-up connectivity in temporary healthcare facilities New field hospitals and pop-up testing stations are being developed right across the world to fight and control the spread of the disease. Speed and flexibility are key to their success – the faster they can be set up, the more patients that healthcare workers can diagnose and treat. This need for mobility and rapid deployment means wireline connectivity is a no-go, making enterprise-grade wireless WAN a preferred choice for many of these facilities. Using LTE cellular networks, FWA has helped remove barriers to getting pop-up facilities connected to high-performance networks in the field without the need for installation by IT professionals. In addition, in-built security measures such as VPN, edge threat detection and content help bolster the security and therefore availability of the network. As a result, healthcare staff can reliably gain access to patient records, transmit valuable data and receive updates in real-time from centralised control hubs, wherever and whenever needed. Extending company networks to home offices Social distancing has made remote working an imperative of business continuity for many organisations across the world today. Innovations such as fibre broadband, cloud-based applications, and a host of agile collaboration tools have similarly shifted from being useful nice-to-haves to business-critical activities. However, the consumer networks to which home offices are connected lack the security, reliability and manageability characteristics needed to meet the standards of enterprise-class connectivity. This can not only result in a loss of worker productivity due to reduced network capacity, but also risks comprising data security regulations and opening vulnerabilities in the corporate network due to access via an unmanaged, unsecured connection.

Remote working is an imperative of business continuity for many organisations across the world

In order to emulate the standards of network connectivity found in enterprise working environments, remote workers can rely on plug-in-and-play FWA solutions with all the characteristics of an office-based network already built-in. Not only does this provide remote workers with a high-performance connection separate from their home network, but also enables organisations to centrally monitor, troubleshoot and secure remote access to the corporate network through cloud-based management platforms. For the vast number of households – with multiple people working from home or children using high demand streaming or gaming services - a separate FWA corporate WAN solution running on an LTE network can provide office-like connectivity separate to the home network. Bringing connectivity to those who need it most High-speed home broadband underpins many of the everyday experiences that have now moved online. One of the most crucial is education, as reflected by the UK government’s recent promise to supply disadvantaged children in England with free laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers. This last provision is especially important in light of the UK’s digital divide, with internet usage 30 per cent lower amongst lower-income households than those with an income of £20,000 or more, according to the Oxford Internet Institute. High-speed home broadband underpins many of the everyday experiences that have now moved online.

A similar social initiative is currently being rolled out in the United States at a grassroots level. One organisation has converted yellow school buses into mobile high-speed public Wi-Fi hotspots to provide free Wi-Fi to the neighbourhoods of school districts. Fitted with gigabit-class LTE modems, these access points offer sufficient bandwidth for students to gain full access to the learning resources and online content they need. In addition, in-built security capabilities, such as threat protection and content filtering, help minimise the risk of students accidentally downloading malware or accessing dangerous content. By bringing enterprise-class connectivity to every student, these mobile hotspots are helping to keep students engaged and learning, something which is ever more critical during this period. A watershed moment in how people, places and things get connected In these uncertain times, it’s important to look at silver linings. Daily life would be been disrupted considerably more if the coronavirus pandemic had broken more than a decade ago. Innovations such as smartphones, 3G/LTE, fibre broadband and the cloud have proven to be crucial to continuing daily life during the current crisis, while only having emerged within the last 15 years. It’s clear that innovation both is and will continue to be key to facing the challenges of the future, especially when it comes to the technologies that help us to communicate, collaborate and cooperate. The need for easy-to-deploy networks has ushered in wireless as the defining network medium of our time. Moreover, flexibility, agility and efficiency will continue to be the ingredients of success long after the current crisis ends. It’s therefore more important now than ever to cut the cord, consider FWA as the primary source of connectivity, and realise the potential of enterprise-class wireless as the default network paradigm moving forward.

Source: Smart Cities World