The EU project 5G-IANA kicks off to accelerate the creation and commercialisation of 5G-based Automotive Applications

5G-IANA is an EU-funded project focused on providing agents of the automotive and mobility sectors with an open 5G intelligent experimentation platform. This platform will enable companies (especially SMEs) to develop, implement and test their automotive services as well as to accelerate their development prior to the commercialization phase.

The AOEP (Automotive Open Experimental Platform) platform, which lies in the core of 5G-IANA, will consist of a complete set of hardware and software resources that will make up an advanced communications IT infrastructure applied to transport, taking advantage of 5G intelligent networks’ potential. It will be coupled with an enhanced NetApp Toolkit tailored to the mobility sector, available to all companies and agents of the service value chain. 5G-IANA will put at the disposal of these users secured and standardized APIs for accelerating the production stage of new services.

Within the framework of this project, different virtualization technologies will be investigated and developed for enabling the deployment of the end-to-end network services across different domains (vehicles, road infrastructure, MEC nodes and cloud resources).

‘5G-IANA aims at boosting 5G uptake on key segments of the automotive industry, where 5G/B5G business practical applications carry tremendous potential. The project is designed to bring significant changes in the automotive sector, impacting society at large, by delivering 5G solutions that are set to tackle challenges associated with road safety and energy efficiency, while also creating new business opportunities for SMEs and Start-Ups.’ mentions project coordinator Dr. Angelos Amditis from ICCS/I-Sense Group.

5G-IANA will be demonstrated through seven automotive-related use cases in two 5G testbeds: one operated by NOKIA in Ulm, Germany, and one operated by Telekom Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Validation scenarios will be the following: remote driving; manoeuvres coordination for autonomous driving; virtual bus tour; Augmented Reality (AR) content delivery for vehicular networks; parking circulation and high-risk driving hotspot detection; network status monitoring; and situational awareness in cross border road tunnel accidents.

The disruptive approach of the project intends to go beyond technological development and exploit obtained results from these demonstration activities. 5G-IANA aims to increase the uptake of 5G starting from the key Automotive industrial segment. Also, significant benefits are foreseen by 5G-IANA on the areas of safety, environment, and economy. By providing real-time notifications about emergency cases on the road and by sharing kinematic information when overtaking, 5G-IANA will provide increased safety. Moreover, 5G-IANA will improve traffic flow by providing real-time traffic data to the drivers. Finally, 5G-IANA will also lead to emissions’ reduction by shortening the time-to-destination (and time for parking) for each driver.

As regards commercialisation of services, 5G-IANA will perform a multi-stakeholder cost-benefit analysis that will identify and validate market conditions for innovative commercial models focusing on (their) sustainability. These models will support a long-term roadmap towards the generalisation of 5G-based innovative services. This project is part of the strategy for the pan-European deployment of 5G as a key advanced Automotive services’ enabler.

Vicomtech makes part of this ambitious project and will assume the responsibility of leading data monitoring and processing. Additionally, it will be involved in the technical tasks related to the NetApp Toolkit development and will also lead dissemination and exploitation activities. Vicomtech will bring its expertise on streaming and coding standards and its great wealth of knowledge on autonomous driving technologies. It will implement its services based on Artificial Vision, Advanced Display Systems, Knowledge Engineering and Advance Algorithm. Vicomtech puts at the disposal of the project its extensive infrastructure including an Autonomous Vehicle and an Interactive Digital TV Laboratory.

The website www.5g-iana.eu is already running to provide updated information on the development of the project.

The project that started in June 2021 and will run for three years, brings together 16 partners including telecom operators and vendors, technology companies, research institutes & universities and SMEs in the tech & automotive industry, from 8 European Countries. The project’s budget amounts to €7.6 million, of which €6 million comes from the EU research & innovation programme H2020 (ICT-41-2020: 5G innovations for verticals with third party services). The kick-off meeting of the consortium took place on September 9 and 10, 2021 in Athens, Greece.

The 5G-IANA consortium consists of the following members: Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS - coordinator), Nokia Solutions and Networks GMBH & CO KG, Ulm University, LINKS Foundation - Leading Innovation & Knowledge for Society, Vicomtech, Telekom Slovenije DD, Ubitech Limited, HIT Hypertech Innovations LTD, Bylogix SRL, FSCOM SARL, Nextworks SRL, 5G Communications for Future Industry Verticals SL, Incites Consulting SA, Oseven Single Member Private Company, Cognitive Innovations Private Company, Internet Institute - Communications Solutions and Consulting Ltd.