Italy

Location: Turin, Italy.

The focus of the Italian trial site is the development of advanced features in the B5G system that can ease the interaction between applications and the B5G network, providing the means to make the B5G system adaptable to the varying needs of applications. This supports the development and validation of two advanced Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) use cases centred on autonomous driving: 3D scene reconstruction from vehicle sensors and 5G-enabled routing reconfiguration. The dynamic reconfiguration of the B5G network and the dynamic instantiation of applications based on external triggers represent distinctive features of the Italian trial site. 

This objective is achieved through the deployment of innovative technology enablers that, through specific APIs, allow applications to perform various operations. Among these, an application can request a specific QoS profile for a given end user, request the instantiation of an application on an edge server, or retrieve information about the position of end users. Built upon the interfaces exposed by the B5G core network, these APIs enable CAM applications to transparently interact with the B5G system to perform such operations. 

The facilities at the Italian site provide an experimentation area tailored to test CAM applications in a real urban environment. Experimenters have access to a B5G system enhanced by the technology innovations introduced in the ENVELOPE project, in one of the main areas of Turin devoted to research and innovation. 

Pilot status 

The Italian trial site in Turin is operational after the completion of the integration activities. The 5G core network and the MEC edge servers are running, while connectivity tests have been performed to validate the network performance across the testing area. The vehicles are autonomous prototypes equipped with LiDAR, frontal and lateral cameras, and GNSS, and are ready to be used in the demonstration of the two autonomous-driving use cases. A 5G-ready OBU is installed on each vehicle to provide connectivity with the B5G network. 

In the context of the ENVELOPE project, the Italian trial site developed three technological enablers: Quality on Demand (QoD), Devices in Area, and Edge Cloud. These enablers expose CAMARA-based APIs to ease the interaction between applications and the B5G system. The enablers have been tested in the field, and their functionalities have been correctly validated. The integration activities of the applications related to the two autonomous-driving use cases have been completed: the 3D scene reconstruction workflow, based on vehicle sensor data sent to the OBU, and the 5G-assisted routing reconfiguration workflow, based on information delivered through the network. Following this milestone, tests are ongoing to validate in the field the workflow of the use cases and to demonstrate how the features available in the Italian trial site can enable innovative CAM use cases. 

Additional activities concern the evaluation of the overall solution deployed in the Italian trial site. Measurements have been performed across the site to estimate the network performance. Further tests are underway to collect metrics for KPI computation, leading to the final comprehensive evaluation of the innovations introduced in the Italian trial site and to the verification that the target objectives have been met.