£30m of public and private funding aims to combine industrial ingenuity with 5G technology
Projects in Sunderland, Preston, Liverpool, Manchester, Brighton and Suffolk have been announced by the DcMS.
The use of AI-controlled traffic lights to reduce pollution and congestion will be tested in Manchester and the potential for remote music festivals using 5G will be tested by Brighton Dome.
A private 5G network will be developed in Liverpool to provide remote NHS video consultations for low-income families unable to afford good connectivity.
A trial at the Nissan factory in Sunderland will look at 5G’s ability to boost productivity through use of autonomous trucks.
“We are helping innovative thinkers across Britain use their creativity to harness the power of 5G and boost economic productivity, cut pollution and congestion, and develop the next generation of entertainment,” says digital infrastructure minister Matt Warman.
The projects will receive a share of £30 million through 5G Create, an open competition combining British creativity with innovative new uses for 5G as part of the wider £200 million 5G Testbeds and Trials programme (5GTT).
The government is pushing ahead with its plans to unlock new economic benefits and productivity boosts from 5G while commercial rollout continues.
It has now funded 24 5G testbeds across the UK, which have trialled almost 70 different 5G technologies, products and applications.
Today’s £30 million package consists of £16.4 million from the government match-funded by organisations ranging from large tech and telecoms companies to SMEs and local authorities.
Seventeen UK SMEs are involved in the projects, including those that will help to drive forward the government’s work to open up the UK’s telecoms supply chains.
Three of the six projects – 5G Edge-XR, 5G Smart Junctions and Liverpool 5G Create – will involve British SMEs trialling the use of open access 5G infrastructure and network solutions.
BT’s 5G Edge-XR project will be tested in a platform that includes Samsung kit, marking the first time the South Korean telecoms vendor is participating in a UK-based 5GTT project.
A second round of new projects to receive funding through 5G Create will be announced in the autumn.
Projects include:
5G FoF (Factory of the Future)
Project funding amount:
Total project value: £9,517,019
DCMS funding: £4,793,162
Project location: North West
Project Summary:
BAE, Advanced Manufacturing Catapult and IBM will lead a large project in Preston that ultimately aims to deliver the Tempest fighter jet at half its current cost, and to drive UK global manufacturing competitiveness. The project aims to develop integrated solutions to some of the key challenges to deploying 5G technologies in manufacturing, using 5G to test use cases such as robotic assembly, reconfigurable product assembly lines and distributed and shared VR/AR. The programme will establish a primary site at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) North West and secondary sites in BAE Systems Warton and AMRC Sheffield.
5G Festival
Project funding amount:
Total project value: £3,438,497
DCMS funding: £2,238,692
Project location: South East
Project Summary:
The ‘5G Festival’ (5GF) project will demonstrate how 5G can enable the empowerment of the music industry to bring live festivals and music events to audiences no matter where they are in the world. Using a cutting edge, immersive platform that leverages high bandwidth and ultra-low latency 5G technology, audiences and artists will connect seamlessly across continents, driving new experiences from the home as well as major venues such as the Brighton Dome and the 02 Arena, using most advanced 5G facilities by Digital Catapult and Telefonica. For example a music fan in Edinburgh could experience their favorite artist live in LA, collaborating with another artist in London, all without having to leave their front room.
Smart Junctions 5G
Project funding amount:
Total project value: £2,336,392
DCMS funding: £1,160,778
Project location: North West
Project Summary:
Visionable, Weaver Labs (both UK SMEs) and Transport for Greater Manchester aim to deliver AI traffic control systems to reduce congestion and pollution as well as improving productivity by cutting waiting times at traffic signals. The project aims to use a 5G small cell networks to decrease infrastructure costs for the connection of sensors at every junction, removing the need to mount hardware onto buildings in district centre locations as well as supporting connected bus projects and other mobility based public services. This project fosters innovation in the telecoms using open architectures and a new network deployment approach that allows for new domestic SMEs to contribute.
5G Edge-XR
Project funding amount:
Total project value: £2,558,494
DCMS funding: £1,486,004
Project location: East Anglia
Project Summary:
BT’s Media and Research teams are working with TheGridFactory, Condense Reality, Dance East, Bristol University and Salsa Sound. Among the work to be developed are virtual and augmented reality experiences to complement BT Sport’s services. 5G Edge-XR will for example demonstrate how 5G networks, coupled with cloud graphics processing units, could enable people to view immersive sporting events from all angles across a broader range of devices including smartphones, tablets, AR and VR headsets and TVs. It will also help realise the vision and potential of 5G networks to create new opportunities for UK businesses at home and internationally, and encourage inward investment.
Liverpool 5G create
Project funding amount:
Total project value: £7,146,261
DCMS funding: £4,302,596
Project location: North West
A group of local healthcare bodies, the University of Liverpool, BluWireless (a UK 5G kit vendor) Broadway Partners (a small UK mobile operator) will build a 5G network designed to benefit local NHS, social care services and other public bodies in a post-Covid-19 world. It will use private 5G networks to develop affordable connectivity for remote health and social care, improving future resilience and reducing inequalities that arise from lack of affordable access. This builds on the existing 5GTT funded project in Liverpool and develops the commercial business case for and testing new applications in the health and social care sector. The project will stimulate the development of low-cost 5G technology as well as improving future pandemic resilience and reducing inequalities.
5G CAVL
Project funding amount:
Total project value: £4,851,780
DCMS funding: £2,422,370
Project location: North East
5G CAL will deliver a huge stride forward in Connected and Automated Logistics (CAL), taking 5G enabled solutions out of the testbed into an operational manufacturing environment. Nissan, Sunderland Council, the North East Motor Manufacturers Group and Three will deliver 5G-connected, autonomous 40-tonne trucks to distribute parts and assemblies across the Nissan plant, linking to many local SMEs in their supply chain. As with 5G FoF, this is about driving operational efficiencies and improving productivity. Their vision is to develop a globally unique centre of excellence and operational test facility for CAL at the Nissan Sunderland site.
Source: electronicsweekly
