Telia, TalTech and several Estonian companies will participate in an international program 5G Routes, which will test innovative and unique solutions on a global scale.
The 5G Routes consortium includes 22 members from ten European countries: Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Greece, and Cyprus. The program brings together Ericsson Estonia, Telia Estonia, TalTech, Estonian Railways, Latvian carrier LMT, Airbus Defend, Space, and several others.
According to Andre Visse, CTO at Telia Estonia, the members of the consortium will develop and test innovative 5G solutions to demonstrate that 5G is indeed a technology that creates radically new possibilities. “The program focuses on Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM), which explores how 5G can contribute to the development of various modes of transportation. For this, a 5G corridor will be created for testing new solutions on cars, trains, and marine vessels in Latvia, Estonia, and Finland,“ Visse said.
According to Muhammad Mahtab Alam, Professor at TalTech, 5G-Routes is a major breakthrough project, where partners from Estonia and Baltics are leading for the first time 5G public private partnership (5G-PPP) project. “TalTech is the only academic partner in 5G Routes and we are proud to be part of this pan-European project,” Alam said.
TalTech will be leading technology enablers development, particularly advanced positioning solutions for autonomous vehicle using 5G. One of the main challenges is to determine the position of the vehicle with centimeter accuracy instead of meters.
The 5G Routes program will focus on 13 practical solutions, which will be tested and tried out in situations as close to real life as possible. For instance, the program will explore and test how 5G can help to improve the autonomous vehicles capabilities in terms of lane changing, traffic jam, predictive maintenance etc. Additionally, tests will be conducted to monitor carriage of passengers and goods, as well as solutions to ensure safe overtake.
In Estonia, the tests will be conducted in Telia’s 5G network. It is important to note that the 5G Routes program plays an important part in the overall development of 5G networks. The 5G Routes program is, to date, the largest international 5G project funded by the European Union that is carried out in the Baltic and Nordic countries.