The University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) and Digital Greenwich have partnered to co-create and trial new 5G smart city technology.
The University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC), one of Europe’s largest research centre dedicated to 5G, has partnered with the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s initiative Digital Greenwich to create and trial new 5G smart city technology. Leveraging 5GIC’s research and innovation within 5G, the partnership aims to lay “the foundation for next generation digital technology, standards and services in a smart city context,” said 5GIC in a statement. As part of the new collaboration, Digital Greenwich will host a 5G smart city incubator space where innovators and entrepreneurs can work on technology that will link transport, mobility, logistics, energy, healthcare and education. “The partnership will leverage the facilities and expertise at both the University of Surrey in Guildford and Greenwich to deliver ‘smart’ resource-efficient, low-carbon, healthy and liveable neighbourhoods within a city. The 5G standardised approach will provide the opportunity to scale solutions at wider city and national level,” said 5GIC.
The partners’ ambition is to create a world-leading smart city strategy. “Fundamental to next generation smart city applications is the creation of a robust communications systems. Working with Digital Greenwich will enable the 5GIC to develop solutions targeted at multiple use cases in a city context. The partnership will also provide the foundation to drive standardised solutions for all of the UK to benefit from the technology,” commented professor Rahim Tafazolli, director of 5GIC and Institute of Communication Systems. Also commenting on the announcement, minister of State for Digital and Culture Matt Hancock said: “We want to make Britain the most digitally advanced of all nations. We are already a world leader in the development of 5G technology, so I’m delighted by the new partnership between the University of Surrey and Digital Greenwich.”
Results of the new partnership will be fed back into the 5G standardization process, said Adrian Scrase, chief technology officer of ETSI.
IIoT News Recap: Vodafone and Huawei trial TDD+ to lay foundations for 5G; Thread Group and Open Connectivity Foundation team up to ease smart home adoption; Aware360 selects Gemalto for IIoT connectivity; Majority of Americans fear connected cars will be hacked
Road to 5G: Vodafone and Huawei trial TDD+
Huawei announced it is trialing TDD+ (4.5G) with LTE TDD with Vodafone UK to increase 4G capacity and efficiency in urban areas. The trial involves testing of 4×4 MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) techniques eight-way transmit and receive (8T8R) together with multi-user beam-forming, in Manchester. “By combining MIMO with beam-forming, Vodafone is better able to focus customers’ mobile signals in specific directions to ensure the best user experience and minimise interference during peak times in highly populated areas. As a result, more signal reaches more subscribers particularly at the edge of the base station coverage, in order to provide higher average speeds across the network,” said Huawei.
Smart home: The Thread Group and Open Connectivity Foundation team up to ease smart home adoption
The Thread Group and Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) announced the two alliances are to start collaborating in order to advance the adoption of smart home solutions. “To help the internet of things realize its full potential, companies across the product development spectrum – including silicon, software, platform, and finished-goods - must ensure interoperability across common technology areas. The organizations will work together to ensure that OCF’s application layer will be fully compatible with Thread’s low-power, secure and scalable IPv6-based wireless mesh network layer,” said the alliances in a statement. Both organizations support low-power technologies.
IIoT: Aware360 selects Gemalto for industrial IoT connectivity
Digital security company Gemalto announced it has entered an agreement with industrial IoT (IIoT) solutions provider Aware360, whereby Aware360 will be able to “connect with virtually any sensor, device or machine and quickly transform big data into smarter data” via Gemalto’s cloud-based SensorLogic Application enablement platform. “We chose the SensorLogic Platform because it’s perfectly suited to meet our goal of simplifying industrial IoT. Customers can shorten development times thanks to the platform’s built-in capabilities like communication control, agile APIs and infinite connectivity options,” said Paul Turner at Aware360.
Today’s forecast: Majority of Americans fear connected cars will be hacked
When it comes to connected devices, U.S. consumers are most fearful of connected cars being hacked, according to new research by data protection company Vormetric, a subsidiary of Thales. Indeed, 61 percent say they fear the hacking of their cars. Just as many fear their home security cameras will be hacked. Only 18 percent feared their fitness trackers would get hacked. “Consumers don’t seem to recognize the amount of sensitive data that these devices collect,” said Tina Stewart, vice president of marketing at Vormetric. “Consider fitness trackers. These generate a continuous stream of location and health data that can pinpoint where a person is at all times when wearing the device. There are already many cases in the courts where Fitbit data is being used to corroborate testimony and check on people’s whereabouts. It’s important that people take the time to investigate the data security of their IoT devices. After all, personal and financial health could be at stake.”
