5G-MOBIX trial sites conduct live demonstrations

5G-MOBIX project partners in three participating countries– The Netherlands, France and Finland – filled the month of April with live demonstrations at their trial sites.

In each instance, project partners exhibited their experiences and results trialing and implementing 5G-enabled connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) services and functionalities.

5G-MOBIX trial sites include two Cross-Border Corridors (Greece-Turkey and Spain-Portugal) and six local Trial Sites in France, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, China and South Korea, which are bringing complementary insights to the cross-border issues trialed at the Corridors. The 5G-MOBIX trials have been assessing the added value of 5G connectivity for advanced CAM use cases in cross-border conditions.

Each project trial site is tasked with demonstrating different applications and user stories, such as remote driving, extended sensors, advanced driving, and vehicle Quality of Service (QoS) support, which depend on uninterrupted 5G service. These applications underline the necessity for solutions that ensure service continuity at cross-border areas, with limited network capacity.

Dutch partners perform an interurban demo

The Netherlands trial site event took place on 5 April 2022 at the Automotive FieldLab in Helmond where live demonstrations of cooperative collision avoidance & remote driving use cases were conducted. Associated workshops were organised on tele-operations, cooperative collision avoidance and extended sensors. This was a joint event of the 5G-MOBIX and 5G-Blueprint projects and the demonstrations were supported by KPN, TNO, TU Eindhoven, VTT, Siemens and AIIM.


Safe lane change manoeuvre showcased near Versailles

On April 21 2022, the VEDECOM research institute hosted a demonstration around 5G on the Satory test tracks, near Versailles. Attendees witnessed how an advanced mobile network can assist autonomous vehicles in lane change manoeuvres. The demonstration scenario involved an automated vehicle and a connected vehicle. The automated vehicle informed the second vehicle coming behind in the same direction about its trajectory change intention to ensure a safe and smooth lane change operation. Such a communication should be rapid and reliable enough to guarantee the safety of both vehicles. The 5G-MOBIX French Trial Site use case, which was tested both in Versailles-Satory and at the Spain-Portugal cross-border corridor, has measured that crossing borders results in a loss of signal of 5 to 20 seconds, which can be critical for an autonomous vehicle.

The demo was organized in partnership with the consulting and engineering firm Akka Technologies, the equipment manufacturer Valeo and the British company Catapult, which specializes in satellites.

As with all 5G-MOBIX demo events, this event was targeted at local market players and brought together vehicle manufacturers, telecom and road infrastructure operators, public transport players and public authorities.

Finland tests remote driving and extended sensors

Finland trial site demo attendees witnessed a live demonstration on 28 April 2022 of remote driving in open campus roads with support of connectivity from a 5G multi-network (multi-PLMN) environment. The 5G-MOBIX trials were conducted in the Aalto University (Otaniemi Campus), with an autonomous vehicle traveling on campus roads with mixed traffic and with various road users, such as cars, bicycles, scooters, and pedestrians.

“The Finland trial site experimentally tested how leveraging of multiple 5G networks with overlapping coverage footprint could provide enhancements in terms of service continuity and meet the needs of a demanding remote driving use case for a vehicle with high-level of automation,“ said Edward Mutafungwa, Aalto University.

Trial site partners from Aalto University and Sensible4 organized the demos for attendees, which included local regulators, municipalities, vehicular solution vendors, operators, public funding bodies and researchers


Next stop: The cross-border corridors

These demos were building up to the demonstrations at the Greece-Turkey (GR-TR) and Spain-Portugal (ES-PT) cross-border corridors. On 10 May 2022, the 5G-MOBIX GR-TR team presented their results and showcased the impact of the tested solutions utilizing the ‘See What I see’ functionality for trucks driving in platoon formation, as well as for remote vehicle inspection, predictive risk assessment and automated truck routing into customs.

The ES-PT cross-border corridor showcase comes last in mid-September as this will also be the time and place of 5G-MOBIX final event. The results from all trial sites will be presented together with demonstrations of remote control and cooperative automated operation of an automated shuttle (receiving information from other road users such as Vulnerable Road Users. Stay tuned for more information on the final event programme.