What it is about
The project “5G-COMPASS” stands for Convergent Open Mobile and secure Provider-ASSisted 5G indoor and hotspot network. In other words, a convergent open mobile and secure provider-assisted 5G indoor and hotspot network.
Today, more than 80% of wireless data is generated or consumed in buildings, and the trend is rising. For future applications in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), quality of service requirements are increasing at the same time. Today’s 5G solutions are mainly designed for outdoor use and are unrivalled there. Solutions for 5G networking in buildings require additional infrastructure, which is very expensive. The innovative approach in 5G-COMPASS is a heterogeneous indoor RAN (i-RAN), based on low-cost, advanced LAN (IEEE Std 802.3) and WLAN (IEEE Std 802.11) components, which can be integrated into the 5G core network with an open interface, just like the conventional 5G RAN. These technologies specify only the physical and data link layer, which allows more flexibility in terms of architecture. They are designed for the mass market and are comparatively inexpensive.
Aims of the reserach project
5G-COMPASS develops the new optical transmission methods Fibre-to-the-Room (FttR) and optical wireless communication (LiFi) very close to the application, and the available technologies Powerline Communiation (PLC) and WLAN in such a way that they meet the requirements of advanced applications with regard to data rate, energy efficiency, latency and user-friendliness. 5G-COMPASS pursues a disaggregated network architecture (Open RAN) with open interfaces and advanced control mechanisms for (W)LANs in order to use the available network resources more efficiently and to ensure a higher quality of service. In the long term, the approaches developed in 5G-COMPASS should improve the performance of provider hotspots, corporate and home networks. One goal, among others, is a seamless transition for the user between technologies inside and outside buildings.
The partners are providing four test sites, equipping each with appropriate configurations of a converged access network and conducting application demonstrations. These include:
- Identifying critical functions in the converged building networks.
- Specifying test scenarios and test procedures.
- Deploy and test applications over the converged access networks and measure and experience the benefits of 5G-COMPASS in different applications and address the broad application potential.
The test areas cover usage scenarios from the fields of industry, medicine, office and home networking, addressing a broad spectrum of application possibilities, but also application-driven technical challenges of the convergent access network.
Within the project, the WvSC will set up a demonstrator in a factory hall equipped with 5G for the use case in the industrial sector. Mobile robots, some of which can also operate outdoors via 5G, perform tasks in the hall that are demanding in terms of communication technology, such as semantic object recognition, object manipulation, autonomous control and precision navigation. In the LiFi hotspot, network-based assistance functions with particularly high QoS requirements such as real-time 3D visual monitoring or intervening remote control are used. By means of the WiFi hotspots, the substitution potential for (more cost-intensive) 5G indoor coverage and QoS-preserving end-to-end networking can be demonstrated. The effect of changed network QoS on vehicle and application behaviour can be directly experienced using dashboards and participant observation.
