Awarded eight new 5G technology pilot projects

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has awarded eight new 5G pilot projects, which have an aggregate budget of almost 40 million euros, of which about 12 million will be co-financed by Red.es, an agency dependent on the Ministry, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The projects will be developed during 2020 and 2021 in Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Community of Madrid, Valencian Community, Extremadura, Galicia and Basque Country. They will explore and identify use cases and applications of 5G technology in thirteen different sectors, from security, to education and industry, to agriculture, tourism or television production.

The promotion of the deployment of 5G networks is one of the axes of the Spain Digital 2025 strategy, since this technology has a high capacity to contribute to economic productivity and territorial structuring. According to 2016 data from the European Commission, its economic impact will mean investments worth more than 5 billion euros and the creation of more than 300,000 jobs in Spain.

The pilots will be developed by Temporary Business Unions led by various telecommunications operators and suppliers of equipment and services for these networks. Also participating are 68 public and private entities that will experience in their applications the three great improvements provided by 5G: very high-speed mobile broadband and capacity, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, and massive machine-to-machine communications.

5G Pilot Calls

The public call for aid that is awarded today is the second of these characteristics. The first was also launched by this Ministry through Red.es at the end of 2018 to the value of 20 million euros. Then two projects were awarded that are still in progress in Galicia and Andalusia.

The awarded projects will allow Spain to continue to lead the deployment of 5G networks at European level, as it is the country where there is a greater number of pilots.

Summary of some use cases of awarded projects

Andalusia. The project has a budget of 1,228,014 euros and will be developed by Telefónica R+D and Nokia. Use cases will be developed in Malaga in the areas of security, smart cities, education and industry. In the area of security, there will be six cases of use of support to the Malaga police in voice communications, traffic control of people and video transmission for emergencies, among others.

Applications of artificial intelligence algorithms will also be developed that evaluate the HD/4K images received in real time for municipal management; four cases of use of virtual reality and augmented reality at the University of Malaga; five cases of use in an industrial plant 4.0 for control of AGV (Automatic Guided Vehicle) and three cases of use of video analytics with artificial intelligence for cameras of the port and use of drones for surveillance in the port of Malaga.

Castilla-La Mancha. The project has a budget of 1,231,816 euros and the applicants are Telecom CLM, Furious Koalas and Amanto Soluciones Toledo. The applications will be developed in the television, health and tourism sectors. In the field of television, a 5G signal will be collected from the place where the news is gathered to produce in real time and in the cloud the signal that will finally be broadcast. In the field of health, images in augmented reality will be transmitted in real time between the out-of-hospital emergency unit and the specialist doctor in the hospital. Finally, home automation and sensorization will be integrated in a hotel so that managers can coordinate their activity, perform remote maintenance operations, etc.

Catalonia. The project has a budget of 5,392,668 euros. The applicants are a Temporary Business Union made up of Retevision, Xfera, Parlem Telecom, Nae Comunicaciones, Atos Spain, Increase Solutions, Nearby Computing and Lenovo.

In the field of education, remote education with bidirectional holography and, in the field of industry, the autonomous and connected vehicle will be explored. In Barcelona, an immersive shopping experience will be generated through real-time communication between the figure of the personal shopper and the end customer in the Boqueria de Barcelona market. An autonomous bus will also be developed for the transport of passengers between different points of the Fira de Barcelona complex.

In addition, a 5G network is going to be implemented in a tourist area of the beach of Gavá that suffers variations and very different peaks of number of users. There will also be experiences in the field of television and security, with a video analytics system that allows security agents to have more information.

Community of Madrid. The project has a budget of 2,462,305 euros and will be developed by Telefónica and Ericsson. In the field of industry, a 5G private network will be developed to increase operational capacity and efficiency, as well as reduce costs to logistics plants. The capabilities of the Network Slicing To be able to offer several mobile networks in one and simultaneous translation services will be generated in real time.

In the area of mobility, real-time coordination of communications between drones will be carried out and, in the area of television, multi-camera remote production of professional video that allows remote control of cameras and access of filmmakers to a production in the cloud. In the field of health, the use case consists of providing real-time connectivity and interactivity to multiple sclerosis patients connected in virtual rehabilitation rooms, allowing them to do group rehabilitation from their homes.

In the field of education, meetings with holography will be explored: volumetric video capture system, where special cameras capture in real time and in 3D the body of a person, and it is projected on a virtual space or in augmented reality in a remote place.

Community of Valencia. The project has a budget of 10,145,234 euros and involves Orange Espagne, Huawei, Arborea Intellbird, CFZ Cobots, Global Omnium Idrica, Etra Investigación y Desarrollo, Red Eléctrica y de Comunicaciones Innovación and Robotnik. A use case will be the use of the 5G network as a network of backup To ensure critical communications offered through other technologies (fiber optics, mainly). In the field of tourism, it will be explored to improve the visitor experience through the use of augmented reality.

Another use case will be a platform for communication between displaced personnel (in this case, either workers of the Port of Valencia or emergency teams of the City Council) and expert personnel, sharing in real time video/audio, with func