Sustainable 5G deployment model for future mobility in the Mediterranean Cross-Border Corridor

Project Information

5GMED

Grant agreement ID: 951947

DOI

10.3030/951947

Project closed

EC signature date 9 June 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 31 August 2024

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 15 507 441,35

EU contribution

€ 11 941 861,36

Coordinated by

RETEVISION I SA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - 5GMED (Sustainable 5G deployment model for future mobility in the Mediterranean Cross-Border Corridor)

Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2024-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The 5GMED project aims to bring a sustainable 5G deployment model for future mobility in the Mediterranean cross- border corridor. 5GMED demonstrates how a novel multi-stakeholder 5G infrastructure is able to deliver end-to-end Cooperative Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) and enhanced railway communications services, along the “Figueres-Perpignan” cross-border corridor between Spain and France by a multi-stakeholder compute and network infrastructure deployed by mobile network operators (MNOs), neutral hosts, and road and rail operators.

5GMED supports 4 use cases key for the future of mobility, and therefore for the society as a whole:

• Remote driving – automated driving on highways can be performed in full safety, even when a critical event occurs on the Automated Driving System (ADS) preventing the normal system operation beyond the homologated Operation Design Domain (ODD)
• Advanced traffic management – digitalized road infrastructure for intelligent traffic management of the connected and automated vehicles
• Applications and business service continuity in cross-border railway – transition of a commercial train between ADIF in Spain and SNCF in France
• Follow-me infotainment – media modules are integrated into the network edge node and enable enhanced content distribution strategies.

5GMED main objectives are:

[OBJ.TECH.#1] To specify and validate a scalable, cross-border and multi- stakeholder 5G system architecture supporting CCAM and enhanced railways services that can be replicated along Europe.
5GMED demonstrated the provisioning of end-to-end CCAM and enhanced railways services for end-users across real-life cross-border scenarios so that different stakeholders can pool their available network and compute resources to deliver advanced services such as real-time highway traffic optimisations, remote driving and real-time video feed analysis for high speed trains.

[OBJ.TECH.#2] To design and develop cross-operator service orchestration that enables MNOs, neutral hosts and road/railways Infrastructure Operators to deliver service continuity to end-users.
A cross-MNO orchestration framework with federation and automation capabilities has been developed.


[OBJ.TECH.#3] To propose and establish novel practices on how MNOs, neutral hosts, OEMs and road operators can cooperate to deliver Remote Driving, Advanced Traffic Management and Infotainment use cases in cross-border scenarios.
5GMED has defined the technical baseline to deploy, validate, and demonstrate three advanced CCAM use cases, chosen based on their need for 5G and their relevance in cross-border scenarios.
5GMED final demonstration in June 2024 showed that 5G along with its features and other improvements, like seamless roaming, is a suitable vector for service continuity of CCAM applications (UC1), low latency and high throughput (UC4), and on-time delivery of road alerts and traffic strategies provided by an innovative V2X Server (V2X-GW) deployed at the MEC layer (UC2).


[OBJ.TECH.#4] To identify and establish MNOs and railways operators’ cooperation priorities to deliver advanced performance and business use cases across cross-border scenarios.
5GMED is considering performance services delivering real-time processing of sensor feeds from moving trains, through the combination of computing resources at the edge of the network and high-speed mobile connectivity to the trains. In addition, 5GMED is demonstrating business services to passengers including high-speed Internet through Wi-Fi and on-board neutral host connectivity for cellular connectivity services.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

5GMED final demonstration was the culmination of 4 years of intense work in designing, planning, deploying and validating a network able to support very diverse and highly complex CCAM use cases.

Additionally, during the current reporting period, the consortium has continued its work in the business exploitation model and standardization activities. Likewise, there has been an increase of project participation in industry events, press releases and social network engagement. The project final event held in Peralada in June (M46) was a big booster for dissemination.

On the resources utilization, we see an overall deviation of 6,9% on the total PMs planned for the project vs the PMs finally needed. The main cause contributing to it was the one-year project extension. This created additional effort on meetings, coordination, trips, and number of reviews, regardless the scope of work didn’t change.

On financial terms however, the overall subcontracting deviation is 23%, mainly due to the extensive efforts network deployment, troubleshooting and configuration require. For ODC the overall deviation stays at -11%.

It is the opinion of the 5GMED consortium that the project objectives have been achieved, and its results and recommendations will allow to enable seamless CAM and railway services in other corridors in Europe.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

PROJECT RESULTS:
•
• Knowhow and production processes related to architecture, design and integration of 5G network with inter-PLMN handover.
• Mechanism to deploy virtualised services in hybrid scenarios (edge / DCs) supporting enable edge migration
• Multi-tenant small cell and satellite backhauling
• Embedded software for automated and real-time object recognition in 3D LiDAR data, applied to security in the train
• Level 1 of management: Road servers and algorithms capable of handling local risk situations by using C-ITS messages with very low latency.
• Level 2 of management: Proactive traffic management centres using tools to improve traffic safety and flow, even in cross-border scenario.
• Cruise4U: Automated Driving Level 4 on Motorways ready for homologation
• Drive4U Remote: Teleoperation service orchestrated by the VLO XR platform
• 5G Telematic Control Unit demonstrated and tests passed
• Orchestration platform to natively support infotainment use cases and multi-infrastructure management

PROJECT IMPACTS:

Impact 1 - Validation of latest version of 5G technologies and architecture in a CAM context, including validation of innovative business models and applicable standards.
Impact 2 - Validated cost/benefit analysis of cross border 5G deployment enabling CAM along 5G corridors potentially including several business domains.
Impact 3 - Characterization of 5G Release 16 or beyond for the most advanced CAM use cases (see through, sensor sharing, high density platooning, etc.) including innovative spectrum use.
Impact 4 - Validation of sustainable models combining 5G and AI features to support most advanced CAM use cases.
Impact 5 - Technological validation of 5G introduction for train/railways use cases including FRMCS aspects, migration, spectrum, and co-existence issues with the automotive case.
Impact 6 - Development of a sustainable model for a pan-European cloud infrastructure supporting CAM services at European scale.
Impact 7 - Support to sustainable deployment models paving the way towards deployment actions across pan European 5G corridors envisaged for CEF Digital.
Impact 8 - Participation of key European industrial partners of both the ICT and the automotive sectors and with high standardisation impact is desired.

General 5GMED Infographics