In February 2023, small scale pilots’ demonstrations of the 5GMED project were held in the Circuit of Castellolí (Spain) and the LFP facilities (Spain-France) to showcase the project’s progress to the European Commission delegation.

The impact of 5G extends far beyond our smartphones: it has already arrived to mobility to disrupt it, improving speed, low latency, increased capacity and communication of vehicles, infrastructure, drivers and passengers. 5G will impact future mobility, making it safer and more informed, efficient, and sustainable, especially in cross-border contexts, the focus of the 5GMED Project.

“The objective of 5GMED is to deploy a 5G network along the corridor between Figueres (Spain) and Perpignan (France) to support different services and automotive and railway use cases“.

José López Luque, 5GMED Coordinator and Innovation Project Manager at Cellnex

To demonstrate the potential of the 5GMED Project, we replicated the border of the Mediterranean Cross-Border Corridor between Spain and France to carry out the small scale pilots in the Circuit ParcMotor of Castellolí in Barcelona. “We have two 5G SA networks deployed: one represents the Spanish network and the other one is the French network, so we are testing our use cases in this cross-border scenario”, explains Francisco Vázquez Gallego, 5GMED Technical Manager and V2X Research Line Manager at i2CAT Foundation.

Judit Bastida Raja, 5GMED WP3 Leader and Innovation Project Manager at Cellnex, describes how we replicated at the Demo Days of February 2023 all the challenges that we might have later in the large scale cross-border corridor: “We can test the time of the roaming, the interruption time we are encountering, and we can even attach to different networks with different SIM cards”, she said.

5GMED automotive and railway use cases

Teleoperation with 5G provides many benefits in terms of increased reach, enhanced safety, increased efficiency, improved accuracy and cost savings. “5G networks help a lot for teleoperation. Since it has a large bandwidth, we can send more data and videos, and we can also reduce latency, so it is more comfortable for teleoperating cars“, highlights Philippe Adrianavalona, Software Engineer at Valeo, about the Use Case 1 Remote Driving.

Moreover, 5G guarantees the necessary infrastructure for the efficient collection, analysis and dissemination of messages in real-time, including in cross-border scenarios. In words of David Porcuna, Project Manager of Transformation and Innovation at Autopistas Abertis, “the objective of the Use Case 2 Road Infrastructure Digitalisation is to ensure safety and fluent mobility in high risk with mixed traffic, where connected and automated vehicles co-exist with conventional, non-connected cars”.

But the promises of 5G are also about to be applied to railway passengers, with the combination of the next generation communication system for the railway industry and 5G. This is what the 5GMED Use Case 3 Future Railway Mobile Communications is focused on. “We showcase five FRMCS-like services: innovative IOT system; obstacle detection on the track based on LIDAR images; passenger security with and Artificial Intelligence module; high-capability internet access and high-performance through Wi-Fi 6; and neutral small cell in the train to connect mobile phones with the cell”, clarifies Juan Agustí Moreno, Project Manager at COMSA Corporación.

With security in place, the next step towards an enjoyable road or railway experience is entertainment. Use Case 4 Follow-ME Infotainment is working on this, to guarantee that the services that the users are consuming should be following the passengers, producing an edge-to-edge migration, as Rodrigo Peces, Software Developer at Atos, explains: “If the user is moving, the services will follow”.

5GMED demonstrated to be a pioneering and cutting-edge project that endeavours to break down technological barriers in cross-border transportation, paving the way towards a limitless world.

Watch it in the video below! 👇👇