The INT5GENT project successfully demonstrated resilient, low-latency fiber-wireless connectivity solutions, adaptable 5G orchestration frameworks, and high-capacity, flexible mmWave and Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) transport architectures, paving the way for dynamic, scalable 5G networks capable of meeting the rigorous performance demands of future wireless applications. These advancements were achieved based on two primary pillars: Integrated Railway Infrastructure Monitoring and Safety and Advanced 5G Solutions for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR).
1. Integrated Railway Infrastructure Monitoring and Safety
Centered in Barcelona, Spain, the first pillar of the INT5GENT project focused on the innovative monitoring and safety of railway infrastructure. The initiative aimed to showcase the platform's capability to manage network and transport slicing, providing differentiated services over shared infrastructure. A mission-critical safety application with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) was deployed at the edge, ensuring low latency and rapid response times. Monitoring and maintenance applications were hosted in the core cloud. The testbed for this scenario integrated the Catalan Government Railways testbed and the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya facilities, connected via a software-defined optical backhaul transport network. This setup included components like an SDR-based gNB card, a portable 5G core, and a Kubernetes cluster for application hosting. In a secondary scenario within the railway use case, a baseline operation was conducted where all railway applications were deployed in the core cloud without stringent QoS requirements, illustrating the enhanced benefits of edge computing and heightened QoS.
2. Advanced 5G Solutions for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR)
The second pillar of INT5GENT was dedicated to the deployment of critical services for PPDR operations through dynamically provisioned 5G infrastructures, tested in Athens, Greece. The first scenario demonstrated an AI-based object detection application deployed over an orchestrated 5G system in standard conditions. This setup combined a public telecom 5G core with additional RAN sites deployed on demand, spanning the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) campus and COSMOTE telecom operator’s data center. The testbed incorporated Sigma-Delta 5G RAN, Digital 5G RAN, Analog-RoF cards, and D-Band transceivers, with a programmable fronthaul transport network. A second scenario addressed the continuity of 5G services and applications in the event of telecom infrastructure failure. It involved the automatic deployment of a full 5G PPDR network, ensuring reliable service continuity through real-time drone and camera-based video streaming with cloud-native principles and AI-based edge processing.
