5G-Safe-Plus. Can Digital Twin help address road deaths?

More than 20,000 people die each year in a road crash in the EU, according to official statistics.

However, the EU has a vision of near-zero casualties in traffic by 2050.

This gap has to be closed by technology, and the journey has to start with effective design, testing, validation, and implementation of a wide range of technical solutions – from new autonomous driving features to innovative telecommunication systems and services.

The 5G-Safe-Plus is an international project aiming to prevent traffic accidents and avoid casualties by delivering 5G-enabled, time-critical road safety services to vehicles and other road users.

Here, accurate local weather data and road maintenance information will play a key role, together with direct accident information, enabled by 5G networking capabilities and services.

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Digital Twin might be the first step in this journey. Nowadays, all complex development projects requiring close cooperation between stakeholders and technologies should start with a precise, functional digital representation.

It will allow to test, simulate, and validate many alternative design and service options virtually – before putting them to a test in real-world conditions. This way, the best candidate can be chosen based purely on the digital performance, allowing to assign available resources to develop only the most promising solution further.

Another fundamental aspect of this kind of interdisciplinary project is data coherence. It is crucial that all stakeholders speak the same service and design “language” and all understand the data in a similar way. Because, in reality, the vehicle sensor specialist and 5G engineer might understand the same data in a different context, resulting in making non-optimal project decisions.

Bringing all relevant project data into one clear, visual environment where you can actually see, forexample, the 5G radio coverage, LIDAR range, thermal camera view, or vehicle sensor field-of-view, can significantly improve data clarity and understanding.

5G Safe Plus project goals:

• Investigate and enhance innovative 5G applications for the automotive industry, examining connectivity, service needs, and business models.
• Create connectivity and data integration solutions for vehicles, fleets, and sensors through 5G technologies.
• Develop sophisticated services for road weather and safety using data from vehicle sensors, telematics, and meteorological systems.
• Study the service distribution and data processing near the network edge and end-users.
• Conduct simulations, pilot programs, and tests employing state-of-the-art technology, including Digital Twins.
• Contribute to standardization and legislative processes through insights and collaborations established in the project.

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Blare Tech role in the project:

• Integrate area/environment data coming from different sources and in different formats (photogrammetry, Lidar, CAD).
• Create a coherent Digital Twin representation of the test facility.
• Embed live data coming from vehicles, sensors, devices, and services to enable effective evaluation and comparison in a visual environment.
• Develop a set of Digital Twin simulation functionalities that will allow for evaluation and optimization of different test and design scenarios.

Project conclusion and outlook.

“5G-SAFE-PLUS has successfully studied and refined novel 5G-inspired use cases for the vertical automotive sector and analyzed the resulting requirements and business models for connectivity and services in participating countries. Based on the use cases and requirements 5G-SAFE-PLUS has designed, developed and used the best possible tools (sensors, measurements, communications, Mobile Edge Computing, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, algorithms, digital twin etc.) to increase safety by providing reliable, measured, scientifically correct real-time information, forecasts and warnings.” – says Pekka Eloranta, Sitowise Oy.

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