The consortium, made up of Orange, Aracnocóptero, CFZ Cobots, Elewit (Red Eléctrica Group), ETRA, Idrica, Robotnik, Visyon (MEDIAPRO Group) and other partners, is conducting different pilot projects in Valencia to promote the digital transformation of a variety of manufacturing industries in the Spanish economy thanks to the application of the new 5G technology standard.
Valencia, September 9, 2021. The First Vice-President of the Government and Minister for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, accompanied by Carolina Pascual, the Valencian Regional Minister for Innovation, Universities, Science and the Digital Society, and Pilar Bernabé, the City Council of Valencia’s Deputy Mayor’s for its Economic Model, today attended a series of demonstrations to showcase the new 5G mobile technology developed by the consortium made up of Orange, Aracnocóptero, CFZ Cobots, Elewit (Red Eléctrica Group), ETRA, Idrica, Robotnik and Visyon (MEDIAPRO Group). The event was also attended by Joaquín Colino, CEO for B2B, Orange Spain; Luz Usamentiaga, Director of Institutional Relations, Regulation, External Communication, CSR and the Orange Spain Foundation; and Silvia Bruno, the President of the consortium, CTO of Red Eléctrica Group and Director of Elewit.
The projects shown to the minister are just some of the 17 pilot schemes that the consortium is conducting within the framework of the National 5G Plan, the program for the development of 5G technology pilot projects run by the public business agency Red.es, backed by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This Plan aims to drive the definition and implementation of multiple use cases for this technology through the creation of an ecosystem of technological partners, who join forces to accelerate the process to make the so-called ‘digital economy’ a reality in the near future.
The project has a budget of €10 million and also includes other partners such as the Valencian Regional Government, the Valencia City Council, Cosco Shipping, Intel, Fermax, Red Eléctrica de España, Hispasat, Viesgo, Huawei, Fivecomm, Qampo, iTEAM and the UPV. Its objective is to seek out new applications for this new technology standard. Further details about its content and objectives are available on the following website: https://5gpilotosvalencia.orange.es/.
Four use cases of 5G
Nadia Calviño had the opportunity to see four examples of the 17 use cases being worked on by the members of the consortium in the Valencian Region.
- Enriched Tourism 4.0. Orange, Huawei and Visyon (MEDIAPRO Group) are working together on a project for the Valencia City Council and Prensa Ibérica, which enables tourists to discover the history of selected locations using augmented reality. The tour is presented by a host who uses AR glasses and gestures to display the content around the participants.
- Robotics for diagnosing cancer. In this project, Orange, Huawei, iTeam, Fivecomm and CFZ Cobots have joined forces to develop a robotic arm that will help the Valencian Oncology Institute (IVO) to remotely detect skin cancer using multispectral images processed with technology developed by the technology center, Ainia.
- Precision agriculture. Orange, Huawei, Qampo and Catec are developing a solution with drones and sensors that optimizes irrigation, analyzes the quality of the water used and monitors the state of crops in real time for the company Explotaciones Agrícolas Rajalu. The project is taking place in several citrus plots covering a total of 150 ha. in the Vega Baja area of Alicante.
- Remote inspection and maintenance using robots. Orange and Huawei are working with Robotnik and iTeam to perform inspection and maintenance tasks in electricity and rail infrastructures, using remotely controlled robots via the 5G network for the Valencian Regional Government and the electricity utility Viesgo. Remote control of robots in complicated terrain requires excellent data transmission capacity (high-quality images) and ultra-low latency.
5G technology opens up major opportunities for development, progress and a sustainable future thanks to the remarkable improvements it brings in terms of speed and bandwidth (with speeds of over 100 Mb/s and peaks of up to 1 Gb/s), ultra-low latency (around 1 millisecond, compared to 20-30 ms for 4G networks) and the ability to connect millions of devices in real time.
These extraordinary advances enable experimentation in a broad range of new services, which will benefit various manufacturing industries and provide a decisive boost to the digital transformation of society and the Spanish business fabric.
Idrica: use case based on MIoT
One of the use cases is the one that Orange, Huawei, iTeam and Idrica, through its technological solution GoAigua, are developing for Global Omnium. This pilot reads meter consumption in real time and sends information via the 5G network to the management center for analysis, pricing and information processing.
The project involves measuring 30 meters distributed in different locations on the UPV campus. Some of them are indoors, so the use of the 700 MHz node will be required to ensure coverage. The results obtained will be used to draw conclusions about the capacity of 5G to connect millions of devices in the future and to pre-empt the detection of risks and emergencies thanks to real-time meter readings.
Consortium members
Partners
