The 5G-PLANET project that saw the launch of a 5G awareness platform run by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and co-funded by Luxembourg’s Department of Media, Connectivity and Digital Policy (SMC), recently reached successful completion with excellent results.

5G-PLANET tackled a host of challenges and queries surrounding 5G within Luxembourg such as, how does it compare to other technologies? What’s the impact of 5G on mobility performance compared to other communication technologies? What is the capabilities and limits? And what’s the interest of developing a 5G network digital twin for Luxembourg?

The 5G-PLANET project spread awareness to a wide audience with the use of the digital twin concept, recreating a digital copy of part of the Luxembourg 5G infrastructure, which was then used to demonstrate 5G’s potential in Luxembourg.

A new awareness website

5G-PLANET led to the development of three demonstrators, all of which rely on technologies used by LIST in its mobile network research and development activities. Each demonstrator is clearly described in detail via a new website 5G-planet.lu and informative videos aiming to answer frequently asked questions have been produced:

• Introduction of 5G-PLANET
• 1. What is connected mobility?  
• 2. What is 5G?
• 3. What is the purpose of 5G for connected mobility? 

5G-PLANET’s full title is “5G Network Digital Twin for Connected Mobility” and therefore a main area of focus was related to vehicle technology and the general use within the mobility sector and the benefits it brings.

The 5G-PLANET project actively spread the word on 5G by participating in more than seven events, organising several workshops, responding to many Luxembourg press queries, and generating a strong impact on the Luxembourg ecosystem.

What’s next?

But this is by no means the end of its mission and work will continue into the future with the platform being further developed. Sébastien Faye LIST’s 6G Technology & Innovation Line Manager stated, "It is essential for the research community, already working on technologies that are years away, to ensure that those currently available are adopted by the general public and businesses - and this project is a step towards keeping that alignment." 

LIST continues its research and activities concerning next-generation mobile networks in Luxembourg and beyond.

The three afore mentioned demonstrators in the 5G-PLANET project can also be transferred for future research as Sébastien explained. “In the future, it is expected that these demonstrators will be used both for public dissemination activities and for supporting the development of LIST's mobile network activities, which today can be broken down into two main areas. On the one hand, the further development of 5G, currently being deployed and opening a world of new services and applications. LIST is striving to push for its adoption for the general public and in the commercial sector developing ground-breaking business cases. On the other hand, research on 6G, which has already started and is expected to be commercially available before 2030”.

Imagine reaching sub-millisecond response times and terabit communication. Those are the potential capabilities of 6G. It is predicted that future 6G networks will use higher frequency bands close to those used by radar technologies. This means that it will be possible to use a radio interface to communicate, but also to detect moving objects, their shapes, and other characteristics. “This opens the door to many new applications, but they need to be tested and calibrated before investing and moving forward. The demonstrators developed in 5G-PLANET are examples of tools that can be used to do this and to pre-validate the results of our research before a real deployment,” stated Sébastien Faye.

The 5G-PLANET project therefore, has been paramount in laying the foundations for both of these fields of future research with its awareness-raising activities and development of a testbed relying on the digital twin concept to experiment early 6G concepts, approaches, and technologies – to be further developed in the future.

More information and future developments on 5G-planet.lu - a website that will be developed and maintained in the future with other dissemination initiatives.