With Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 getting underway in Barcelona this week, it’s worth reflecting on one advantage of 5G that often goes under the radar – its positioning prowess. Mobile networks have long had the ability to triangulate user equipment based on signals received from neighboring base stations, but 5G positioning takes this to the next level.

What’s more, while ramping up the accuracy of radio-based positioning typically incurs a cost for users – who may need to install additional hardware – 5G breaks this trend by using existing communications technology to deliver high-resolution location information at a lower price point.

MWC Barcelona 2024 is officially OPEN!!

Don't forget to join the conversation using #MWC24 and #4YFN24 and enjoy the event! pic.twitter.com/uD1vHenuTA

— #MWC24 (@MWCHub) February 26, 2024

Want to know more about 5G positioning? Then MWC 2024 is the place to be.

Thanks to features added to the global wireless standard, 5G networks offer positioning capabilities that can pinpoint connected devices within a 1 m area, and that’s just the beginning. “5G Advanced represents a further development of 5G technology and promises faster data transmission of 20 GBit/s and localization accuracies of 20-30 cm to meet the growing demands of the connected world,” writes the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen).

Applications are numerous and will appeal to industrial users in particular. As Ericsson – a provider of indoor 5G positioning systems – points out, smart manufacturing operators can use real-time location information to specify tool settings. “Tightening wheels and putting on car doors requires different torque curves,” explain Magnus Kristersson and Partha Sarathy – product specialists at the global communications technology firm – in a related blog post. “With indoor 5G positioning, we can automate getting the right torque curve to the right tool while disabling tools that are not in a work cell.”

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Defining 5G in terms of business and enterprise use cases

Qualcomm – a developer of chips for mobile devices – has put together a test bed highlighting its industrial precise positioning capabilities using 5G and complementary technologies. In the demonstration, engineers used 5G positioning augmented with machine learning RF fingerprinting to locate machinery under non-line-of-sight conditions.

The setup has six 5G transmission reception points distributed within the facility, which can follow objects of interest with high precision thanks to the data fusion approach.

On TechHQ, we’ve written about how private 5G networks can be a game-changer for businesses. Firms can use private 5G networks to bring connectivity to locations not readily served by public mobile networks – for example, operations in remote areas. But the benefits don’t have to stop there.

If companies are looking for accurate real-time location services on top of data transmission capabilities then it’s possible that 5G networks could perform both duties, saving on the amount of upfront investment required.

Modern wireless standards such as 5G feature positioning reference signals, which can be received passively by user equipment to help pinpoint devices. It’s also possible to measure round trip time using multiple cells to deliver positioning information. And one of the big breakthroughs is the use of angular based methods that report on the arrival of signals across 5G antenna arrays.

Researchers in Sweden have shown how developments have made it possible to perform vehicular positioning with only a single base station, which shows how car-makers could automate navigation when GPS signals are unavailable.

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Edge computing keeps 5G in the fast lane and on the pulse

Satellite navigation can become unpredictable when relatively weak GPS signals are blocked in dense urban areas. Mass transit systems such as trains can also be disrupted when satellite positioning fails, as their automatic door-opening systems depend on GPS functionality.

The list of potential use cases for 5G positioning is long and includes use cases indoors and outdoors, from asset tracking to emergency rescue. Plus, solutions can be portable – such as the Fraunhofer IIS Nomadic 5G positioning testbed, which the institute has on display at MWC 2024.

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Have you seen the footage of a Waymo robotaxi going up in flames?

Waymo robotaxis have been having their moment as the sole autonomous vehicle on the roads in San Francisco. In October of last year, after an incident involving a pedestrian, Cruise – the General Motors owned self-driving offering – was accused of covering up information relating to an accident and its permit was removed by the California DMV.

That doesn’t mean Waymo, which is owned by Google, hasn’t had its own safety issues: last June, one of its vehicles killed a dog and more recently a cyclist was struck and injured having been obscured from sensors by another vehicle at an intersection.

All this is to say that the safety of driverless cars is up in the air. For many, this means they shouldn’t be on the roads; San Franciscans have understandably felt used as test subjects in the robotaxi experiment. Driverless vehicles drove more than nine million miles on public roads with test permits last year.

A recent “attack” on a Waymo robotaxi that saw the vehicle’s windows smashed before it was set alight by a firework. The cab had attempted to drive through San Francisco’s Chinatown on the first day of the lunar new year – something that a human driver would know to avoid.

Crowds brought the vehicle to a stop at the intersection between Jackson st. and Grant Avenue, where it was covered in graffiti before violence escalated.

Via Reuters.

But it’s difficult to wholeheartedly call it ‘violence’ or an attack, given that it is just a car – there were no passengers and, obviously, no driver. The Jaguar I-Pace operated by Waymo was the only ‘casualty’.

“The vehicle was not transporting any riders and no injuries have been reported,” Waymo said in a statement. “We are working closely with local safety officials to respond to the situation.”

The company previously described the vandalism as an isolated case, but another Waymo rider told Reuters he rode in a Waymo the next day through another San Francisco crowd that shot fireworks at the car.

“Once they saw the Waymo, they started pointing directly at the Waymo instead of up in the sky,” said Nathan Flurry, who recorded the scene. Flurry describes himself as a Waymo fan.

As well as the incidents involving robotaxis, some are saying that there’s a more generalized fear of AI at play.

“We are seeing people reaching a boiling point over tech that they do not want and does not make their lives better,” said Missy Cummings, director of the George Mason University Autonomy and Robotics center and a former adviser to U.S. traffic safety regulators.

Peskin, the city supervisor, said it may not have been an “anti-tech thing” but rather just criminal mischief by “a bunch of hoodlums.”

True, the streets had been almost completely clear of vehicles as pedestrians grouped to watch the fireworks. The crowd had parted for the occasional car to pass, but the Waymo robotaxi came to a halt in the middle of it all. A fire department spokesperson confirmed the Waymo vehicle partially blocked the road.

Waymo didn’t respond to questions on Monday about why the car drove into the crowded public event. The incident gives rise to another point in the driverless vehicle debate, according to Bryant Walker Smith, a professor at the University of South Carolina with expertise in autonomous-vehicle law: whether self-driving cars can or should be able to detect areas busy with pedestrians and navigate around them.

“I would be interested in hearing from Waymo about how its navigation accounts for these kinds of incidents,” he said.

Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who has called for more regulation of autonomous vehicles, said “most normal car drivers know that they have to avoid Chinatown during the Lunar New Year holidays. The computer doesn’t understand that.”

He further argued the disruption wasn’t an “anti-tech thing” but just criminal mischief by what he described as “a bunch of hoodlums.”

Although we couldn’t possibly comment on the folk in the crowd, we are inclined to agree that, although representative of festering resentments, the incident wasn’t really motivated by anti-AV rhetoric.

The Safe Street Rebels operated a campaign of disruption to driverless vehicles from their introduction to roads in 2022. Having realized a traffic cone on the hood of a driverless car interfered with sensors, halting it until a human employee ‘rescued’ it, the protestors disabled the vehicles across the city.

The Waymo incident has none of the flair or careful thinking that Safe Street Rebels have demonstrated; in their efforts to increase road safety, outright violence is off the cards.

More likely, the crowd was irritated by the interruption of a car cutting through and without a driver to exchange angry gestures with the car itself was the target of their annoyance. Then, of course, the lack of driver makes it spectacularly easy to escalate – hostility, if we can even call it that, isn’t that damaging to a vehicle the way that fireworks are.

California state Senator Dave Cortese, who is proposing legislation to give local governments more power to regulate self-driving cars, said the fact that the car drove into a crowded area during fireworks underscored the technology’s shortcomings.

“What is becoming abundantly clear is that AV technology is not as sophisticated as the industry would like us to believe.”

This after an incident in 2023 that saw a Cruise robotaxi get stuck in wet cement: “It thinks it’s a road and it ain’t, because it ain’t got a brain and it can’t tell that it’s freshly poured concrete,” resident Paul Harvey told SFGate.

The Waymo robotaxi was in the wrong place at the wrong time, poor thing, but while the incident isn’t all that different to a Boris Bike thrown into the Thames, it is a reminder of the social tensions the introduction of AVs stirs up.

Probably pleased not to be in headlines for once, GM’s Cruise has hired a new Chief Safety Officer, naming the lucky holder of the newly created role as Steve Kenner. After October’s accident, founder and CEO Kyle Vogt and COO Dan Kan both resigned, nine executives were chopped and 24% of staff were laid off from Cruise.

Steve Kenner appointed Cruise Chief Safety Officer.

That may have signalled the end, but Kenner’s new role suggests Cruise isn’t done yet. He previously served as VP of safety at self-driving truck company Kodiak and before that was Chief Product and Safety Officer at another driverless truck outfit, Locomation.

“I have worked on safety critical technologies throughout my career, I believe in the safety potential of autonomous vehicles, and I want to safely and responsibly realize that potential,” Kenner said in a statement.

General Motors hopes to relaunch services and regain Cruise’s license to operate soon – potentially the Waymo robotaxi incident will slow proceedings, a warning to the companies testing the safety of AVs in San Francisco.

The post Death of an innocent? Waymo robotaxi set alight appeared first on TechHQ.

We’ve all got to eat, and so food production should be a lucrative business to be in. But as an industry, some argue that food costs more than it earns when you take into consideration the medical costs associated with bad diets. Plus, there’s the impact that food production has on the planet and its resources. However, there’s a glimmer of hope, and that operational lifeline could be food digitization.

“Digitization is a way that we can drive the efficiencies to do it,” Rini Greenfield – a Founding General Partner at Rethink Food, a VC firm supporting the digitization and decarbonization of the food system – points out. “If you want to solve climate change, you cannot ignore what is a third of the problem.”

The fact that VC firms have become interested in food is encouraging for those who believe in market forces. When it becomes profitable to save the planet, there’ll be no shortage of investment. However, things are far from perfect currently.

“This food system that we have today is excellent at distributing calories, but it is terrible at distributing nutrition,” Greenfield cautions.

Rethink Food is investing its multimillion-dollar fund in early-stage food and agtech companies, which are digital-first with a computational front end. Examples include Gro Intelligence, which Greenfield dubs ‘the Bloomberg of agriculture and climate’.

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The thinking is that access to better information gives producers more opportunities to plan ahead – software platforms will be increasingly important to help businesses build climate resilience into their operations. But food digitization helps in other ways as well, and this gets to Greenfield’s first comment about driving efficiency.

One of the reasons that manufacturing has seen mass automation is because repetitive, step-by-step processes are tailor-made for it. Knowledge work, in comparison, is a much messier mix of tasks. And it’s why raising the productivity of a law firm is harder than trying to get a factory to make more widgets. That being said, generative AI promises to do for knowledge work what robots have done for factories (and for more on this, Hamish McRae’s ‘The World in 2050’ is a useful read).

Similarly, food digitization sets the scene for deploying computing power and software to produce more with less, faster, and at a scale that traditional methods can’t match.

Industrialization of the grocery store

On TechHQ, we’ve written about how grocery stores are integrating compact warehouse automation technology into their operations to reduce the cost of order picking. It’s a trend that analysts believe will continue with traditional supermarkets looking more like fulfillment centers to grow profits from customers ordering online.

Bristol, UK, is one of many cities with so-called ‘dark supermarkets’ where only staff walk up and down aisles stocked with fast-selling essentials and popular comfort food. Outside, wait delivery drivers with no walk-in customers in sight. Digital food shoppers prefer to let their groceries come to them, and the proportion of in-store customers could decline substantially as supermarket digitization ramps up.

Absolute primer on digitization of food industry from @zbfuss via @patrick_oshag @InvestLikeBest #DigitalTransformation #tech #Grocery https://t.co/IrmaS1yUZ5

— Curtis Kopf (@ckopf1) January 12, 2021

Supporting the growth in online orders is an ecosystem of food delivery apps, which pay great attention to user-experience and leverage other digital smarts such as gamification that encourages drivers to accept more pick-ups. Delivery apps provide lead generation for grocery stores and give supermarkets and restaurants the opportunity to micro-target their online audience.

Technology can provide a huge revenue boost to independent food businesses, which would otherwise have struggled to compete with bigger chains. But food digitization isn’t purely about chasing profits. There’s scope to reduce the environmental impact of food production and grow produce with bespoke nutritional profiles.

Growing microgreens to order

For example, researchers in Italy – in collaboration with agtech firm Ortogourmet – have demonstrated that it’s possible to grow microgreens to order, customizing nutrition profiles on a large scale. The team grew crops of radish, pea, rocket, and chard, focusing on two nutrients in particular – iodine and potassium.

Rather than fortify table salt with iodine – a common strategy used to combat iodine deficiency – the group showed how it was possible to elevate iodine levels in microgreens, which is beneficial to those who have to watch their sodium intake.

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As well as raise nutrient levels, it was also possible to reduce the amount of unwanted elements – by 45%, in the case of potassium. “Since vegetables contain high concentrations of potassium, patients with impaired kidney function are sometimes advised not to eat vegetables, or that they should be soaked in water and boiled to reduce the potassium content through leaching,” explain the scientists involved in the work.

All of the microgreens were grown using a liquid medium in place of soil, which paved the way for better control over food production with more predictable yields thanks to the climate-controlled environment.

And, just like how dark supermarkets and ghost kitchens benefit from being sited in lower rent city locations, metro adjacent greenhouses and highly-efficient plant growing facilities could also turn out to be profitable in these spaces.

Food digitization could end up bringing the farm closer to the city, maximizing land use, and reducing food miles, which is an appetizing thought for urbanites.

The post Food tech – digitization unlocks efficiency gains in production appeared first on TechHQ.

January is an important month for UK businesses, which have just made it through the Black Friday, Christmas shopping and Boxing Day sales boom. In the final two months of 2023, British consumers spent approximately £24 billion online, a 3.7 per cent increase on the previous year.

In the relative downtime following the festive period, business leaders will reflect on how they can improve operations in the new year. The British Retail Consortium has predicted that 2024 will be “another challenging year” for retailers due to consumers still impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, the impending hike in business rates and disruption to shipments from the Far East via the Red Sea. Indeed, the IGD’s Shopper Confidence Index in December was -8, three points lower than the longer-term average.

As a result of this uncertain future, businesses must ensure they can cost-effectively scale up and down while still delivering excellent customer service, improving accuracy and efficiency. Many may have struggled to meet sales targets or dealt with incorrectly fulfilled orders during seasonal peaks, resulting in dispatch delays and a disproportionate strain on customer service. Businesses most affected by these kinds of issues are small or medium-sized because they operate with tighter margins and fewer resources than larger enterprises. A few negative reviews from poor customer experiences will also have a more significant relative impact on their reputation, and they may not have the financial capacity to offer free returns or replacements. Businesses tend to see a rise in those tricky-to-process returns in January and the first two days of this year saw a 42 per cent increase in returns over 2023.

Dionne Redpath at Europa Warehouse, Corby, Northants. Source: Europa Worldwide Group

Dionne Redpath, COO and Head of Warehouse for Europa Worldwide Group, said: “A third of their business volume might happen in the last six weeks of the year, for example, from Black Friday through to Christmas, and the labour requirements needed to be able to deliver that peak of magnitude has the capacity to come quite challenging.”

A potential solution to the difficulties felt over busier periods for businesses of all sizes is to make use of automation. Using automated picking and sorting in warehouses can help streamline both order fulfilment and returns processes, reducing errors. Automated systems can also handle inventory management, helping to minimise dispatch delays and alleviate the strain on customer services. Such systems can feel out of reach for businesses with a smaller budget, but Europa Warehouse – the award-winning, specialist third-party logistics (3PL) division of Europa Worldwide Group – has a ‘shared-user’ automated solution, housed at its 715,000 square-foot warehouse in Corby. This single facility provides state-of-the-art, £11 million automation technology to multiple businesses, making access more affordable. This shared-user approach to automation is very uncommon within the UK market.

“We were feeling those difficulties [during peak season] ourselves and, therefore, our thoughts really turned to how do we create a more stable operating environment?” Ms Redpath told TechHQ.

“Our customers come to us wanting to know how they can achieve seamless fulfilment during that time without having costly capital investments or a chaotic fulfilment process. While there isn’t always one straight answer, we have found that by adopting shared-user automation, peak season doesn’t need to feel like peak at all.

“It’s no secret that automation is going to revolutionise the future for warehousing in coming years.  In fact, many of the larger players in e-commerce and retail have been incorporating robots, cobots and artificial intelligence technologies within their warehouses for some time, though many would have had to sign up to a long-term contract and committed significant investment in the technology.  However, there are plenty of businesses who may not wish to do either of those things for a host of reasons yet the benefits of being able to do so are just as important.”

Source: Europa Worldwide Group

At the shared-user warehouse in Corby, which was the product of a £60m investment – the Group’s largest to date, products for multiple companies are kept in ‘totes’ within the high-density, secure storage environment.  When an order is received, the automated system calculates the most efficient fulfilment process, triggering the launch of the order carton and the totes containing the products needed to fulfil the order, to arrive at the picker at precisely the right time.  The system has two means of fulfilling orders at picking stations, both offering the opportunity to fulfil multiple orders at the same time with a specific picking station providing the opportunity to fulfil 48 orders simultaneously.  Added to that, the process boasts and impressive 100 per cent accuracy in pick rates.

“When considering very small products, such as cosmetics or components, the system is sophisticated enough to allow totes to be segmented across as many as 12 product types,” Ms Redpath explains.  “The physical construction and configuration of the set-up means that it’s extremely secure which is absolutely fantastic for very high-value products.”

The shared-user facility swiftly adjusts to varying demands, ensuring optimal inventory levels and bolstering confidence. Europa Warehouse efficiently managed 17.2 million units via its automated platform in 2022, effortlessly scaling from 40,000 to 100,000 picks within 24 hours. The system’s modular nature enables tailored operations for diverse businesses, regardless of size or budget limitations.

Ms Redpath told TechHQ: “It allows the 3PL to take their expertise and apply it to that business, meaning that the customer can just carry on carrying on and growing their business. All we have to do is mobilise a small number of additional pickers or pick stations in order to be able to unlock that value.”

Source: Europa Worldwide Group

Europa’s low-cost pallet storage options complement the shared-user automation advantages. For e-commerce businesses who want to maximise value for money, the £1.49 + VAT, the £1.49 + VAT per pallet per week offering allows companies to allocate more capital to expand their business operations, whether through marketing strategies, product diversification or enhancing customer service experiences.

With the cost-of-living crisis, geopolitical turbulence and impending high business rates, Europa Warehouse seeks to level the playing field for retailers. To learn more about how your business can benefit from shared-user warehousing during peak season, call one of Europa’s dedicated warehouse advisers on 01536 909 300 or email automation@europa-worldwide.com.

The post How shared-user automated warehousing is tackling the pressures of peak season. appeared first on TechHQ.

Just because introducing AI into the restaurant industry paves the way for greater automation doesn’t mean that every kitchen is going to be run by robots (although some might be in the future, and a tiny handful are already). “At the end of the day, it’s a people business,” Zhong Xu – CEO and co-founder of Deliverect, a provider of food ordering software – told TechHQ. What’s more universal is the need for food outlets to build a presence online and convert that audience into sales, and that’s a big part of how AI is transforming the restaurant industry.

Xu has been helping restaurants to go digital since a young age and that journey led him to co-found Deliverect. The Belgium-based tech firm’s software platform not only abstracts away the complexity of receiving food orders online and via social media, it gives restaurant owners the opportunity to personalize their offerings to customers, and brings a wealth of analytics.

Deliverect CEO and co-founder, Zhong Xu.

Today, the company has offices in major cities around the world and has helped clients process 500 million meal orders in five years. Food ordering and fulfilment software enables restaurants to become omni-channel operations, much like how retail platforms have transformed brick-and-mortar stores into more versatile digital shopping hubs.

Digital tools support customers who want to dine in, those who’d like to pick up their orders at the restaurant, as well as integrating well-known delivery partners such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo, DoorDash, and Hungry Panda – to give just a few examples.

Writing social media posts and taking orders

Highlighting how AI is transforming the restaurant industry, algorithms help users to prepare their social media posts and launch promotions around specific events. Menus can be changed dynamically – for example, to reflect that a major soccer match or a music concert is taking place near one of the outlets in a medium to large chain of restaurants.

Deliverect is a Meta partner, which enables the food ordering software provider to integrate its solutions with massive social networks such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Consumers can browse their Instagram feed and order directly from an Instagram story that appeals to them – a feature that has a very high conversion rate of clicks to food sales, according to Xu.

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Menus can also be adjusted on the fly. If a menu item is going out of stock, it can be snoozed until more food supplies arrive – avoiding having to deal with disappointed diners and enabling a better customer experience. The food ordering software gives restaurants the opportunity to tailor their offerings to different audiences and run multiple menus at the same time – naturally, only showing one to each of the segments.

On TechHQ, we’ve written about how AI enables firms to create a digital personal shopper for each of their customers on a huge scale. And this strategy plays out in the restaurant industry too. Food outlets have the opportunity to remember their customers’ favourite orders and make recommendations based on those analytics.

AI is transforming the restaurant industry by streamlining menu adjustments at busy times – for example, when fewer staff are on shift, the number of options can be reduced. Complicated menu items can be paused at busy times. Alternatively, pricing can be adjusted dynamically. Xu points out that raising prices during busy times might mean that you lose a few potential orders, but it’s an opportunity for food outlets to capitalize on their popularity.

Data insights can be a game changer for restaurant owners. Digital tools can quickly highlight which menu items are the most profitable and put them in front of more eyeballs. Conversely, analytics help chefs to identify which meals need to be revised or dropped from the menu.

An operational helping hand on wheels.

Describing the benefits of these various operational helping hands begin to show how AI is transforming the restaurant industry. And being able to digitalize and appeal to the tastes of a new online audience without needing any specialized tech skills has helped businesses to survive.

AI has also meant that software providers such as Deliverect, which typically market themselves to mid-size and larger restaurant chains, can support smaller customers too – by integrating the latest automation tools for onboarding and fielding support calls.

Returning to the topic of robot kitchens, it could be something that will catch on if it’s made part of the show – restaurant dining is experience-based, after all. However, the design would need to be significantly more entertaining than a giant vending machine to tempt this author to the table.

The post How AI is transforming the restaurant industry appeared first on TechHQ.

• The Post office scandal is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history.
• At its heart is a malfunctioning technology – and the refusal to admit it was going wrong.
• People died as a result. Others spent time in prison, and had their families’ lives shattered by the cover-up.

If you haven’t yet watched the UK’s “Post Office Scandal” drama Mr Bates vs. the Post Office, and you have friends in the country, you’ve doubtless been told to. Don’t have time? Can’t get the country’s ITV channel? Want to know more before committing a weeknight to the miniseries? Here’s a rundown of the facts – and the tech – involved in the story.

In what’s becomes known as the greatest miscarriage of justice in UK history, between 1999 and 2015, the UK Post Office pursued operators of sub-post offices across the country. The sub-postmasters were alleged to have committed theft, fraud and false accounting – all based on information from the Post Office’s Horizon IT system.

ITV’s Mr Bates vs. the Post Office has drawn attention back to the Post Office Scandal.

What is Horizon?

In 1999, the Post Office’s single shareholder was the UK government (remember this, it’s important later). That year, accounting processes in around 14,000 Post Office branches were automated, with the introduction of a centralized computer system from Fujitsu.

Horizon, the system that replaced paper-based accounting, was originally developed by UK company ICL, but was acquired by Fujitsu in 1998. The system has an electronic point of sale service (EPOSS) that lets subpostmasters and branch workers key in sales on a touchscreen, with the accounts being automated in the background. At the time of its roll-out between 1999 and 2000, it was the biggest non-military IT project in Europe.

Almost immediately after rollout, there was a sudden increase in the number of sub-postmasters suffering unexplained accounting shortfalls. Rather than connecting the dots – new system, new errors, fix system – the Post Office blamed branch operators for the losses.

Although the technology had changed, the contract between postmasters and the Post Office hadn’t. Postmasters owned their businesses, but were agents for the Post Office. So any accounting shortfalls were the responsibility of the sub-postmasters – unless they could prove otherwise.

The brunt of the responsibility being on postmasters made some sense with paper accounting, when a chain of evidence could be easily traced by individuals. But with the introduction of the new system (that wasn’t an opt-in system), there should have been leeway for mistakes – and someone or something to trace them.

Instead, probably because of the size of the project and the government’s stake in the Post Office, a massive cover-up began.

The first port of call for a sub-postmaster experiencing unexplained losses on the IT system would be the call center helpline. Operators were instructed by the Post Office that anyone calling with Horizon problems should be told they were alone in experiencing this.

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Here’s the scope for a scandal: in a normal company, the staff could bring complaints with an external body or would at least have the option to do so. That was not the case at the Post Office.

How it became a Post Office scandal

The Post Office is in a unique position as an employer because it has the power to investigate and prosecute without the need for police intervention. Historically, the Post Office was a public authority – it wasn’t until the Postal Services Act of 2011 that a majority of its shares were floated on the London Stock Exchange.

Then, in 2015 the government sold its remaining shares, ending 499 years of state ownership. If not in 2011, then at this point the structure allowing Royal Mail investigative power should have been examined and, most likely, scrapped.

The first postage stamp – the Penny Black.

Royal Mail lawyers are believed to be the earliest known formal investigators and prosecutors in the modern world, with origins as far back as 1683. With the introduction of the first postage revenue stamp, the Penny Black, postal services were more accessible to the public and volumes of post rose.

Along with that increase came higher crime rates. What had been the Missing Letter Branch of the Post Office was renamed in 1883 to be the Confidential Enquiry Branch, then the Investigation Branch.

Back when letter-writing was the primary means of long-distance communication, it made sense that the experts in letters were the ones with the right to prosecute. The investigations undertaken were serious and varied, including a key role in the detection and capture of the Great Train Robbers.

Since going private in 2015, the Royal Mail Group has retained its investigative branch and legal department, and has prosecuted around 150 cases a year as a private prosecutor.

By 2010, it was known by the Post Office that there were faults in the centralized accounting software. A total of 2500 branch owner-operators were accused of taking money from their businesses and over 700 were prosecuted by the Post Office, despite protesting their innocence and raising the software issues in their defence.

The accused ended up with criminal records and doing community service at the least; several served time in jail. Many were left struggling financially or bankrupt following convictions, and those who didn’t go to court had to financially cover nonexistent shortfalls.

An independent review by Second Sight that was commissioned by the Post Office in 2012 highlighted faults in Horizon which undermined the safety of the convictions that relied on its accuracy and further found the contracts between the Post Office and sub-postmasters to be unfair.

That too was covered up.

Beyond instructing call center operators to let sub-postmasters think they were alone in their experience of issues with Horizon, the head of PR and media for the Post Office helped write a “story” defending Horizon IT system that was then “cut and pasted” as evidence in witness statements used in prosecutions.

Simon Baker, a Post Office employee, asked the company’s media team to help “craft our message,” which had been developed by two lawyers, devising wording that was later used in legal proceedings, the inquiry into the scandal heard.

In 2019, a group of post office operators won a high court case that ruled that their convictions were wrongful, and that the Horizon IT system was at fault. In 2021 it was upheld on appeal (Oh yes – the Post Office appealed!) and paved the way for compensation of workers wrongly accused of committing crimes.

The renewed attention on the case thanks to the dramatization of the Post Office scandal means that politicians are finally getting involved, calling for the names of victims to be cleared and compensation be paid.

Further, the then-CEO of the Post Office, Paula Vennells, left the company “in disgrace” – though that didn’t prevent her receiving a huge payout. Now, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said there’s consideration to be made about removing her CBE.

A petition calling for Paula Vennells to be stripped of her CBE has gained traction in the UK and the Prime Minister says it could happen.

Two Fujitsu experts who were witnesses in the trials are being investigated for perjury and perverting the course of justice, and there’s talk of Fujitsu having to pay some compensation, too.

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Even after the system was found to be defective, the Post Office has opposed a number of appeals by operators. In fact, no one has really been punished for the scandal, besides its victims. Met Police confirmed on January 5^th that the Post Office is under criminal investigation over “potential fraud offences” committed during the scandal.

Despite the Post Office scandal having such widely negative effects, and being linked to at least four suicides, the company has never taken account for its wrongdoings.

In the meantime, the Post Office continues to use the Horizon system. The loss-making Post Office has asked the government for £252m of funding to keep it afloat, including money to cover the cost of updating the controversial IT system, which it still uses with support from developers Fujitsu.

The Post Office scandal left people dead in its wake.

The Post Office scandal was the perfect storm of early digital transformation, lack of regulation and too much internal power. As one of the very first switches from paper to software, more care should have been taken to ensure teething problems were identified and fixed.

Even now, despite standards organizations becoming the norm, the standards they uphold are mostly voluntary. A standards body’s primary function is developing and coordinating the usefulness of technology standards. They create uniformity across producers, consumers and government agencies regarding terminology and protocol.

Had proper oversight been given, the inaccuracies of the Horizon IT system could have been highlighted as issues with the system not its operators.

Now, when searching for regulatory bodies in the tech industry, most focus is given to regulation of the sway that technology companies have – have we really moved beyond a need to ensure the companies employing new technology are doing so fairly?

The post How to prosecute an IT system: the Post Office Scandal in short appeared first on TechHQ.

• Autonomous vehicles are transforming supply chains in a number of ways.
• They also have potential to maximize urban car parking space and valet parking.
• While these may not be Blade Runner applications of autonomy, they can have a huge impact.

Leading self-driving car developers may be facing roadblocks in ramping up their urban operations, but vehicle automation is racing ahead in other settings. For example, cost-effective and eco-friendly tow robots are helping to transform supply chains through improved yard transport operations.

Having trialed the supply chain tech with DHL France in 2023, Unmanned-Transport-as-a-Service provider ex9 – a startup based in Évry, a short drive south of Paris – is making its fleet of autonomous electric shunting robots available globally.

Tow robots – transforming supply chains

The firm’s tow robots, designed to alleviate congestion and delays at logistics hubs, slide under road transport trailers to replace human-driven cabs.

In 2023, the International Road Transport Union (IRU) forecast that driver shortages could double in five years. “An aging population – particularly in Europe and the United States where less than 13% of workers are under 25 – partially explains driver shortages, suggesting that the available pool of national workers may not be enough to cover the gap,” writes the IRU.

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Being bold on supply chain sustainability

Tow robots can automate the common tasks of shunting operators and drivers thanks to a software stack tailored for industrial use and logistics maneuvers. Perception, localization, dynamic control, and path routing are supported by a sensor kit fitted to the autonomous robot tractors.

Ex9 claims that automation can increase the rate of pre-loading and so-called “drop & hook” shunting operations, while reducing costs and lowering the risk of accidents. What’s more, being battery-powered, the self-driving freight technology helps to drive down the emission of diesel fumes at the depot – both by shuttling trailers back and forth using electric power and by cutting waiting times, reducing the amount of diesel engine idling by incoming and outgoing trucks.

Trendsetting container transport

Tow robots for streamlining road freight operations are another check in transforming supply chains. Progress happening elsewhere includes fully automated port operations – such as the Port of Long Beach, US – where autonomous vehicles can be seen shuttling containers on the harbourside.

Sea freight is critical to reducing supply chain emissions, with some shipping operators investigating the use of hi-tech sails. Vessels can be in and out of the harbor in as little as 48 hours, which is a major triumph of terminal operating systems. Unloaded containers from a single cargo ship could stretch as far as 70 miles if placed end-to-end.

Using Automated Rail Mounted Gantry cranes, @PatrickTerminal – Sydney Autostrad achieved a global-first full automation of container transport between yard and rail wagon. Powered by our drives and #automation tech, the cranes increase efficiency, sustainability, and safety! pic.twitter.com/nKWwMeW8fa

— Siemens Aus & NZ (@Siemens_Aus) October 5, 2023

So far, so good, but what about bad weather? Supply chain delays can propagate quickly, and self-driving systems need to be resilient. What happens to wheel-based odometry when tyres slip in damp conditions? A coastal climate of heavy rain, fog, and sea spray could obscure camera images. Fortunately, there’s no need to panic – at least if you’re using radar-based localization systems, which have no such limitations in keeping autonomous vehicles on the right path.

Besides container-carrying self-driving vehicles, other port machinery, such as rubber-tyred gantry cranes and ship-to-shore lifting equipment, can also benefit from the 360-degree all-weather sensors. Navtech – a developer and manufacturer of industrial-grade radar – boasts that sensors operate reliably in rain, fog, dust, dirt, and in all light conditions, including complete darkness.

Use cases beyond transforming supply chains

On TechHQ we’ve written about how other advances – such as quantum computing – can be brought into play, further transforming supply chains. And being able to stack and retrieve large items efficiently has applications beyond optimizing container shipping and improving throughput at logistics hubs.

A growing application for self-driving vehicle robots is automated parking for cars and even bicycles. Parking space is tight in many cities across the globe, and stacking vehicles vertically is attracting interest from industrial automation experts such as Japanese firm GIKEN (see YouTube clip).

In fact, there are a number of providers worldwide working on automated vehicle parking projects, including Stanley Robotics, which has shown how airport parking can be transformed. In this case, a low-riding robotic platform slips under the vehicle and gently raises the car or light truck by an inch or so, using anchors alongside each wheel.

Robots can pack vehicles much more tightly than human drivers to maximize available parking space. They also simplify what can be a dull and repetitive task for human drivers – which is where automation really comes into its own. Valet parking at hotels is another related use case.

Stanley Robotics claims that self-driving parking robots can increase parking capacity by 50%. They also remove a pain point for customers and make parking, in the firm’s words, hassle-free.

Robo-parking – saving space, reducing risk.

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Self-driving skillset – game theory for autonomous vehicles

A key component in all of these autonomous vehicle success stories is that the self-driving element is something that combines with a regular vehicle to perform a well-described and predictable task. In the case of tow robots, it’s shunting a trailer to and from its yard slot. And for parking systems, it’s storing and fetching vehicles.

Also, in all the scenarios we’ve discussed, the environment is well-controlled. Port access is restricted, and likewise for logistics hubs and robot-operated parking facilities. Self-driving algorithms can be better protected from surprises than they can, for example, on the open road or in unpredictable urban settings. There are security gains too – tightly packed vehicles are not easy for thieves to get into and drive away (setting aside cybersecurity threats).

People may be disappointed not to find self-driving taxis whizzing effortlessly around their city. But that’s not to say that autonomous vehicles aren’t making an impact.

Parking promises to be more available and less tedious for drivers. And in deployments that may be less visible to consumers, autonomous vehicles are transforming supply chains.

The post Transforming supply chains: an autonomous vehicle success story appeared first on TechHQ.

• Cruise driverless cars have been involved in several pedestrian accidents recently. 
• After financial losses and spending cuts from General Motors, Cruise is in trouble. 
• Almost a quarter of all Cruise employees laid off as part of future planning. 

For every step forward, Cruise driverless cars seem to take several back. And bad times for the company continue as General Motors subsidiary Cruise announced it would lay off around a quarter of its workforce last week. Following months of trouble and financial loss, the self-driving car business will cut 900 jobs.

It’s been a rocky few months for the company – and that’s putting it lightly. In October, the California Department of Motor Vehicles ordered Cruise driverless cars be removed from the state’s roads and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced an investigation into its fleet.

Some groups have been protesting Cruise driverless cars since as early as July 2023. Placing a cone on the hood disabled the vehicles. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP).

Potential killers?

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DMV drives Cruise off California’s roads

The action came after two accidents involving pedestrians. The first, in August, saw a self-driving car hit a pedestrian at 1.4mph as the person attempted to cross the road. The accident began a negative shift in public opinion of the company.

Then, in October, a driverless vehicle dragged a woman 20 feet along the road after hitting her. She had been thrown into the path of the Cruise driverless car, having been hit by a human-driven car.

Following the incident, not only were Cruise’s permits revoked, but the California DMV accused the company of withholding information and video regarding the incident.

Something like that is particularly damning for a company that’s so reliant on public trust and cooperation from regulators.

Soon afterwards, Cruise voluntarily paused testing operations. All of its US vehicles have now been pulled.

A report from the October incident said the driverless car “braked aggressively” but wasn’t able to stop in time. Both incidents happened at night. Despite all that, Cruise maintains that its safety record “continues to outperform comparable human drivers.”

In late November, GM announced it would cut spending on Cruise. “We expect the pace of Cruise expansion to be more deliberate when operations resume and spending will be substantially lower in 2024 than it was in 2023,” said chief executive Mary Barra at an investor event.

Cruise lost more than $700 million in the third quarter, bringing total losses since 2016 up to $8bn.

Ouch!

Are Cruise driverless cars a rushed and ultimate failure?

Cruise driverless cars – strategic restructing, or does this mark the end?

In recent weeks, both Kyle Vogt, Cruise’s chief executive, and its co-founder Dan Kan resigned. Then, on December 13^th, Reuters reported that nine key people high up in the company were dismissed amid the ongoing safety investigation.

“Following an initial analysis of the October 2nd incident and Cruise’s response to it, nine individuals departed Cruise,” according to a memo.

“We are committed to full transparency and are focused on rebuilding trust and operating with the highest standards when it comes to safety, integrity, and accountability,” the memo said. “As a result, we believe that new leadership is necessary to achieve these goals.”

Among those dismissed were chief legal and policy officer Jeff Bleich and senior vice president of government affairs, David Estrada.

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The different levels of autonomous vehicles: when science fiction becomes reality

Dispelling any misconceptions that those at the top would be the only ones to feel the consequences of the company’s failures, the next day layoffs amounting to 24% of Cruise’s workforce were announced.

The company’s statement on the layoffs says that after some time examining processes, systems tools and how it operates, the job cuts reflect “a more deliberate go-to-market path, meaning less immediate need for field, commercial operations and corporate staffing.”

“These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our North Star.”

Regarding the job cuts, a GM spokesperson said “GM supports the difficult employment decisions made by Cruise.”

“We knew this day was coming, but that does not make it any less difficult —especially for those whose jobs are affected,” Mo ElShenawy, president and chief technology officer at Cruise, wrote in a memo to employees announcing the layoffs. The note added that impacted employees will receive an email “in a few moments,” letting them know whether they are “affected by this staffing reduction.”

Mo ElShenawy in signidicantly happier days at Cruise.

That added suspense was much appreciated by employees, we’re sure.

When Cruise was operative, it had driverless cars in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin. ElShenawy added that the company has the goal of “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with,” though he did not share further details on which city Cruise is planning on returning to once – or if – it resumes operations.

Laid-off employees will remain on payroll through February 12^th, the memo added, and are eligible for up to an additional eight weeks of severance pay depending on time spent at the company.

Cruise isn’t the only driverless vehicle company facing trouble. Also facing safety questions, Tesla recalled more than two million cars after the US regulator found its driver assistance system, Autopilot, partly defective.

An obsession with driverless cars that forecast them as the next frontier of transport has meant rollout is potentially rushed and ultimately unsafe. Rather than worry about transport emissions or improving the public transport sector, companies have raced to deliver the first successful driverless fleet, and – so far – they have failed every time.

The post An onslaught of applicants to drive taxis as Cruise lays off 900 appeared first on TechHQ.

• Autonomous vehicles “to make traffic lights redundant” says British lord.
• Automated Vehicles Bill close to becoming law in the UK.
• How far can technology be an answer to infrastructural neglect?

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Self-driving skillset – game theory for autonomous vehicles

Although autonomous vehicles haven’t really hit the UK’s roads, they’re one of the hottest topics at the moment. In fact, the legal framework to enable self-driving cars to be used on Britain’s roads was included in the King’s speech (the announcement to Parliament of policies the government intends to enact in the next session) in early November.

Packaged as the solution to the environmental damage that cars do, driverless cars are fast becoming the given answer to any infrastructural issue. Keen to keep up with global developments, the government has introduced the Automated Vehicles Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords recently – meaning it’s very close to becoming a functioning reality.

Transport Minister Lord Davies presented the Automated Vehicles Bill, which seeks to address some of the challenges that spring from the new technology – including by providing for corporate entities to assume responsibility for how self-driving vehicles behave, underpinned by a robust framework of safety standards, monitoring and enforcement.

He stressed: “Self-driving vehicles offer an unprecedented opportunity to improve the safety and connectivity of our road network. Unencumbered by fatigue, distraction, frustration or intoxication, and built from the ground up to obey the rules of the road, self-driving vehicles could one day far exceed the standards of even the safest human drivers.”

The Bill ensures that there’s clear legal liability pathway, so there’s no confusion over who’s responsible in crashes involving autonomous vehicles: When the car is in self-driving mode, the company running the vehicle would be liable; drivers retain responsibility for non-driving aspects like insurance and roadworthiness.

Among those weighing in was Lord Moylan, who was the Deputy Chairman of Transport for London back when now-disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was Mayor of the city. In the debate, Lord Moylan claimed that London wouldn’t need traffic lights if automated vehicles replace human-driven ones; TfL has plans to spend big on upgrading its traffic light system.

Apparently, the “extremely comprehensive traffic light system” still depends on SCOOT software that’s been used for upwards of 20 years.

“But why will anyone ever need traffic lights? Automated vehicles do not need them.”

“If their motion is dependent on their sensing where other vehicles are, together with communication with a satellite at the same time, they will not need traffic lights. What will happen to traffic lights?”

So, (forgive us if we’ve misunderstood) because at some point in the relatively near future traffic lights will – as he sees them – be defunct, there’s no need to spend any more money on them.

Auto-Uber?

Standing before his peers, Lord Moylan went on to demonstrate his rich inner life and vivid imagination. If all automated vehicles were privately owned or communally/corporately owned with fleets of pods, “You summon them like an Uber and they arrive, take you somewhere and then park, vanish or find another passenger somewhere.”

“Let us imagine 80 of those lined up nose to tail, very safely moving along Piccadilly from Hyde Park Corner up to Piccadilly Circus, each containing an individual passenger—and bang close to each other because it will be very safe. It will be 80 passengers moving up Piccadilly.”

Because, famously, a group of say 87 people have never before travelled along the same stretch of road at the same time.

The Lord Moylan did concede that his imaginary vehicles would have the same function as a bus.

Alternatively, we could imagine a fleet of pods, so close they almost touch, could almost be connected, following the same route and allowing passengers on and off at certain points.

Lord Moylan acknowledged the need for traffic lights to enable pedestrians to cross. That’s also where trains and automated vehicles would differ because the streets of London see far more foot traffic than its train tracks.

He also said that automated vehicles would be safer than human-driven ones are, in the same way computer-driven tube trains are. Indeed, the phrase “driverless tube” is a political one in London, but it refers almost exclusively to the debate as unmanned trains are yet to hit the underground.

It may actually be the underground train system that would be replaced, along with taxis, buses and privately owned, human-driven vehicles on the streets, by Lord Moylan’s vision of automated vehicles across London.

He further told the UK’s upper chamber that automated vehicles should be seen as addressing the “last mile problem” rather than longer distance travel issues.

Last mile logistics refers to the final step of a journey, be it for a parcel or a human. It’s most commonly considered as the final step of the delivery process from distribution center or facility to the end-user.

In the terms in which Lord Moylan is talking, it’s not about getting into London, but to your hotel once you’re there.

READ NEXT

Autonomous vehicles navigate market prospects

Booking an autonomous vehicle once you’ve arrived in London will no doubt ease the last mile for those that can afford it; hailing a black cab may be preferable to catching the tube, but all the traffic makes it excruciatingly slow!

But really it seems like a move that will impact London’s tourists and richest, without touching the experience of those living in the further reaches of the city. It might be slowest of all, but a bus journey is still (just about!) less than two pounds. Those without the means to afford premium transport options should still be able to travel.

Does America have better autonomous vehicles?

One reason that driverless cars were easier to integrate in the US is that such vehicles they do well on vast stretches of road where there aren’t likely to be sudden pedestrians to hit (or to avoid, depending on your point of view). The highway system in the US is therefore an ideal testing ground for the technology. It was once it had proved itself well enough to move into cities and serve as an automated cab driver that issues arose.

In fact, it’s gone so badly that the industry has had to beg US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for help. A coalition of lobbying groups sent Buttigieg a letter last week imploring him to support AV development or risk being outpaced by China. The subtext to this is the grounding of GM’s subsidiary, Cruise, after a crash involving one of its vehicles.

Autonomous vehicles – dividing the UK. Like almost everything else right now.

Now, following a two-year investigation into crashes that occurred in autopilot mode, Tesla has recalled two million cars. That recall applies to near enough every Tesla sold in the US since 2015, when the Autopilot feature launched. The news breaks a week after a former employee at the company told journalists the technology in the cars was unsafe.

So things are going really well with the technology.

Last week, the Guardian published a piece that states driverless vehicles have “failed miserably.” It goes on to argue that public transport is a much better focus. It’s worth pointing out that in context, Lord Moylan’s vision for autonomous vehicles is as a form of public transport.

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Driverless just a drive by? San Franciscans remain hostile to the robotaxi

Public transport (though after national privatization, perhaps it should be reframed as “transport the public may use occasionally, and at great cost”) is a tried and true solution to the problems driverless cars will apparently fix – if it’s done right.

It’s certainly possible that the more technological solution that is autonomous vehicles might go some way to fixing the same problems. But using them as a catch-all solution to avoid investing in public transport infrastructure is simply anti-public ideology masquerading as futurism. It’s the equivalent of pouring billions of pounds into the high-tech protein pill industry because you’re ideologically opposed to restaurants. No bad thing in isolation, but very poorly motivated and missing a lot of the point.

Oh, and invest in the freaking traffic lights – even in the automated future, interaction with street architecture will help avoid accidents like the ones that have dragged Cruise back a step.

The post UK government prepares for driverless vehicles to hit the streets appeared first on TechHQ.

• The business benefits of 5G go beyond standard smartphone speed.
• Private 5G networks in particular advantages for app or use case testing.
• 5G could yet bring significant business benefits to the transport and logistics sector.

With some commentators voicing concerns about whether 5G has lived up to expectations, it’s worth looking at what the fifth generation of cellular network technology is – and what it and isn’t. A good way of getting to the heart of that capability is to focus on what 5G can do for enterprise customers and business users.

5G was badged as being superfast, and this may have added to the confusion. For example, smartphone users may not notice a great deal of difference in device performance, regardless of whether they are connected to 4G or 5G.

READ NEXT

Crop harvesting robots dream of soft fruits

However, there are still reasons to celebrate from an infrastructure perspective. As we’ve mentioned on TechHQ, upgrading base stations to the latest 5G technology not only means that equipment is smaller and lighter – there can be significant energy savings too. And the advantages don’t stop there.

“The integration of AI and 5G in modern switchgear marks a significant leap in the electrical infrastructure management,” comments Kiran Raj, practice head of disruptive tech at GlobalData. “Not only does this tech convergence boost operational efficiency, but it also enhances safety by predicting and mitigating electrical failures before they happen.”

Operators in China have shown how miniature cameras inside switch cabinets can be used to detect fire and activate extinguishers. And predictive analytics can be trained using data from power transformers.

Understanding 5G business benefits

Given the link between 5G and telecoms, it’s natural to look to smartphone performance for signs that the next generation of cellular network technology is living up to the hype. But the bigger picture for 5G goes well beyond handsets.

In its recent report, 5G Building a Digital Society, Vodafone explains how 5G can improve daily life more broadly and shares examples that business and enterprise users may not have considered.

For example, Vodafone says that 5G-enabled sensors on rail networks have the potential to improve services by raising track maintenance efficiency by up to 40% and reducing the rate of fault incidence by 20%. 5G-enabled rail could also help to add capacity to the network, lowering overcrowding at peak times.

Coupling trains virtually using 5G would enable them to share braking and acceleration data. A white paper by Thales calculates that train separation distance could be reduced by 43% compared with using current railway signaling methods, based on analysis of the UK South West Main Line (a 230 km route linking central London and the coastal town of Weymouth). In principle, this would allow many more trains to run without having to build additional tracks.

Low-latency private 5G networks are being used to automate vehicles driving between parts warehouses and main manufacturing sites.

Transportation and logistics could be big winners as 5G networks become more widespread. Vehicle telematics systems have long used cellular communications to connect to the cloud and monitor that all’s well through remote analytics.

Vendors can deliver software updates over-the-air rather than having to instruct owners to contact their dealership. And 5G telematics adds to those capabilities.

Vehicles can connect to each other to see around corners and gain greater knowledge about the road ahead. Automotive technology firm Harman, which is owned by Samsung, describes 5G as the missing piece of the puzzle for highly automated vehicles.

The low latency response time (of around 1 millisecond) that’s possible over 5G – a reduction of ten times compared with 4G – means that humans can remotely control cars, trucks, and other vehicles, with reaction times that are similar to having a driver sitting inside, directly behind the wheel.

Industry 4.0 is changing the business landscape right before our eyes, thanks to #5G and the innovations that come from it . Learn how to stay at the forefront of what’s coming. #5GHQ https://t.co/rghLt3TEG2 pic.twitter.com/EIZ8oIq48B

— David Yelvington (@DavidYelvington) December 11, 2023

5G also supports a much higher connection density than 4G, which benefits smart city infrastructure and brings us arguably one of the most appealing configurations for business and enterprise users – private 5G networks.

Private 5G networks give firms data coverage inside and outside facilities while keeping communications secure. The high connection density and low latency capabilities mentioned above suit mobile robots and so-called ‘intralogistics’ – the movement of goods within a warehouse, distribution center, or production facility.

Kollmorgen, a specialist in the fleet control of automated guided vehicles and mobile robots, has demonstrated (in tests with its partner Ericsson) that platforms are as stable on private 5G networks as on Wi-Fi.

READ NEXT

Smart city connectivity essential to avoid AV jam

Antenna handovers are seamless, and 5G enables localization in dynamic environments without having to use artificial landmarks, according to the team.

Support for time-sensitive networking (TSN) allows fixed Ethernet and 5G networks to operate in harmony with each other. What’s more, TSN means that 5G can support applications normally carried over wired Ethernet, potentially saving on long cable runs at large sites.

Looking at industrial operating environments for 5G, business cases include airports, manufacturing sites, ports, mining facilities, and offshore locations.

How to build a private 5G network

Business and enterprise users interested in deploying their own cellular services have the option of using a private 5G network starter kit. The approach is ideal for testing applications on a pilot scale and gaining experience before making larger investments in the technology.

Private 5G starter kits for business:

• 5G Ready – X4000 Private 5G (XP5G) Solution
• Airspan Private 5G Network in a box
• Athonet starter kit for 5G-SA
• CampusGenius 5G StarterKit
• Flo Networks Private 5G Starter Kit
• Tech Mahindra Private 5G Wireless Network suite on Azure

It’s clear that companies have much to gain from the technology, but other organizations may also wish to take a look at what 5G installations can do for them.

The Liverpool 5G Testbed, which created the largest 5G mmWave mesh network in the UK and second largest in the world, showed how a private 5G network could benefit health and social care services.

Features included a 4k video link to help patients check that they were taking their medicines correctly, which resulted in fewer GP visits and trips to hospital.

READ NEXT

Cube warehouse robots square up against humanoid designs

According to the study, there was a 50% reduction in people taking the wrong medication or receiving an incorrect dosage. Medication adherence levels were as high as 95% compared with a national average of 55%.

Returning to the topic of saving energy, testing of smart streetlights in Oslo – featuring 5G-enabled sensors – demonstrated a 45% reduction in electricity consumption. In dense urban areas, savings could reach 60% – based on a 12,000 light installation deployed in the City of London, which overhauled 30-year-old lighting stock.

Smart city lighting allows control down to the level of specific streets and buildings and enables the illumination to be dimmed as well as turned on and off.

With timely investment, the rewards of 5G to businesses and society can extend way beyond the smartphone.

The post Defining 5G in terms of business and enterprise use cases appeared first on TechHQ.