The 5G applied to autonomous mobility can be an innovative and reliable solution for safer mobility of vehicles without drivers. This is demonstrated by a pilot test that we led this Monday, January 30th in Barcelona, within the project 5G Catalunya, which has developed and validated it. This technology incorporates 5G mobile network communication standards that facilitate the communication of different autonomous devices, within the V2X protocol. A monitored vehicle receives in live, and in high quality images, information of the incidences that will be found in their journey, fast enough to be able to react and pre-empt the possible obstacle or risk. This simulation has been done thanks to AI image recognition applications and vehicular communication developed by research center i2CAT Foundation, under our direction. Applications that are installed on Lenovo’s edge computing server and are used across the network deployed by Cellnex with frequencies property of Masmóvil.
Initially, the project was meant to be an autonomous bus connected by 5G used for internal displacements, quickly and safely, between the different pavilions of fairs and congresses at the Fira de Barcelona.

Finally, the pilot test has been carried out through a driven and geolocated vehicle, and it has been found that the network supports the ultra-low latency, which facilitates sending useful information quickly enough, and allows the communication between moving devices, sending very high quality images in real-time. In this way, the project has validated 5G network utility for safe autonomous driving.

The purpose of the presentation, which has been done at the Somorrostro beach in front of The Hospital del Mar, is to enhance driving safety and check that 5G technology meets the minimum requirements for autonomous driving. It has been attended by Ignasi Tribó, General Corporate Director of Parlem; Antonio Fernández-Paniagua, Deputy Director-General of Planificació i Gestió de l’Espectre del Ministeri d’Afers Econòmics i Transformació Digital; José Antonio Aranda Legazpe, Product Strategy and Innovation Director of Cellnex Telecom;

Sergi Figuerola, CTO of i2CAT; Francisco Javier García Vieira, director of Servicios Públicos Digitales and María Fernández Rancaño, deputy director of Electronic Public Services of Red.es; and José Luis Ruiz Mendoza, of 5G National Plan Technical Office.

This simulation is the second out of seven use cases that make up the project 5G Catalonia, which was awarded by Red.es, public enterprise entity affiliated with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation) to a UTE of eight companies led by Cellnex Telecom and the Masmóvil Group, in which participate, together with Parlem, the company specialized in augmented reality, Aumenta Solutions, Atos engineering, the consultant Nae, technology Lenovo and start-up Nearby Computing –spin-off of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center; supported by the Mobile Foundation World Capital Barcelona. Project 5G Catalonia has a budget of 5.4 millions euros and is co-financed by the European Fund of Regional Development (FEDER).

These cases are aimed at developing solutions based on 5G technology for urban environments (mobility, remote education, industrial sector, purchase in distance, audiovisual transmission, security management and emergencies and connectivity to areas with high seasonal employment). The objective is to boost digital transformation in different areas of people’s lives, helping consolidate the implementation of a technological ecosystem that will act, without a doubt, as a lever for development at both social and economic level.
The first use case involving Parlem, which was presented in April last year, was a simulation of an immersive, personalized online purchase in real time at the Boqueria market in Barcelona. The test showed how users could choose through their devices (PC, tablet, mobile phone) certain items from various market stops, advised by a personal shopper equipped with ultra-high definition augmented reality glasses.