Insights

Spinverse customers Fortum and Metsä Group join forces with Business Finland to create a world-class R&D programme with pulp fibre from renewable and sustainable sources as its node. The 4-year joint R&D programme, called ExpandFibre, aims to develop ground-breaking technologies and smart business concepts that are required to convert straw and wood pulp fibre into novel bioproducts, such as textile fibres. The R&D programme has been granted EUR 20 million from Business Finland. 

Nokia and its partners are targeting the global smart city markets, worth tens of billions of euros.  The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem coordinated by Spinverse has just completed a one-of-a-kind piloting environment that boosts the development of new data-driven services for cities both in Finland and abroad. It covers the route from Nokia HQ Campus in Espoo, Finland, to the nearby Kera railway station. Comprising of 19 smart poles with the latest 5G technology and altogether 250 interconnected devices, it brings super-fast connectivity and extensive sensor network available for practical piloting of digital smart city services. 

The LuxTurrim5G project has been progressing systematically from multi-disciplinary research to practice.  The 5G smart pole concept does not only boast a 5G base station integrated into a light pole but also weather and air quality sensors, video cameras, displays, an electric vehicle charging point and other devices. The concept has now reached its piloting phase for practical applications. The extensive pilot network of 19 smart poles has just been completed in Espoo, covering areas at Nokia’s Espoo Campus and extending to the nearby Kera railway station. The smart poles, using the so called millimetre wave 5G technology, bring high-speed 5G connectivity and an extensive network of sensors within the reach of the users.

”This is a globally unique smart city pilot where a high-speed and low latency 5G network, an extensive sensor network and a data platform bring novel services to the city, its people and community,” says Pekka Wainio, Project Manager, Nokia Bell Labs. 

”Local data collected by the various devices, cameras and sensors within the network can be used to produce a multitude of local services through the open interfaces of the data platform. We have received wide interest on how the surveillance cameras and radar devices can be utilised in overall security surveillance, traffic and road quality monitoring, for remote control of self-driving vehicles and in other transport and logistics services,” Wainio continues.

Joni Turunen, Project Director at Spinverse says: ”This is a unique opportunity for partners of the consortium to get access to a test platform where they can pilot new services utilizing high-capacity and fast 5G connectivity. Our pilot network includes three 26 GHz base stations by Nokia, 50 WiFi (60 GHz) devices, 75 video cameras, 49 different sensors monitoring air quality, weather, temperature and CO₂ levels by Vaisala and others, nine radar devices (six traffic radars and three lidars), seven information screens, and a drone charging and landing station at the top of the pole (by Rumble Tools). What is more, all the devices are connected to a single data platform.”

From light pole to smart pole

The LuxTurrim5G smart pole is not a light pole, but completely new element forming an essential part of the key infrastructure of a smart city. The recently implemented smart pole version already serves as a pre-commercial pilot product which helps to design the actual smart pole product family. Tehomet Oy and Orbis Oy have been mainly responsible for the design and manufacturing of the pilot poles.

”This is the first large-scale smart pole pilot in Finland, and a globally significant project. The shift from traditional light poles to smart poles is a natural, but also a challenging task where every partners’ role matters. Currently we are already working with the next generation of smart poles and focusing on designing and productising a complete product family. Smart poles hold huge potential for global markets,” says Sami Huuskonen, Design Manager at Tehomet Oy.

Digital services for sustainability and smoother living

Espoo is going to transform the Kera area to a smart and urban district with at least 14,000 residents and 10,000 jobs in near future. Kera will become a showcase of sustainable urban development and an international reference case, where the city works together with its partners to create novel, clean and smart solutions to enhance the smoother living of its people. The future Kera will be a significant piloting ground for new solutions, paving the way to larger international projects. The role of Espoo as a pioneer of sustainable development appointed by the United Nations also promotes this approach. The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem and the new pilot environment is in key role in this development.

“Completing the Kera route pilot infra is an important milestone for the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem and a prime example of our intensive co-creation that brings results, even in these exceptional times. Now we are excited to move to practical piloting of different service concepts in the actual live environment, and welcome also new partners to exploit this unique testbed with us”, says Markku Heino, Ecosystem Leader from Spinverse.

The smart pole network will form the digital backbone of a smart city by providing high-speed connectivity and a versatile sensor network to collect a wide variety of relevant on-line data e.g. on environment, weather, traffic flows, public safety, usage of energy to be used by the city and companies for specific needs and to create holistic situational awareness. Cities have also big amounts of own data which often is not widely utilized.

The project has already been developing a data platform that is capable of processing large masses of data from various sources in a reliable and efficient manner. All this is important for building new data-driven services for the city needs. This lays the foundations to the development of the Kera area and helps us to validate our solutions for scale-up in international projects. Through this Espoo pilot, the LuxTurrim5G consortium shares an ambitious target to expand to global smart city markets, worth tens of billions of euros.

Spinverse coordinates the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem efforts with a team of three seasoned experts. Dr. Markku Heino as the Ecosystem Leader, and the two projects have dedicated Project Managers: Dr. Pekka Torvinen for the Neutral Host Pilot project and Project Director Joni Turunen for the LuxTurrim5G+.  

www.luxturrim.com

On this video, you can hear more what Markku Heino, Juha Salmelin and Tommi Uitto from Nokia, Jukka Mäkelä from City of Espoo say about the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem:

Contacts:

Markku Heino, Ecosystem Leader, Spinverse
Joni Turunen, Project Director, Spinverse
Pekka Torvinen, Project Manager, Spiverse
Juha Salmelin, Nokia, juha.salmelin@nokia.com, tel. 050 522 3508

Partners of the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem:

Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia, Premix, Teleste, Vaisala, Indagon, Rumble Tools, Orbis, Tehomet, Destia, Sitowise, Caruna, A-Insinöörit, Link Design & Development, Vedia, Agora Networks, Sensible 4, City of Espoo,  Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Aalto University, University of Helsinki, Tampere University and Spinverse (coordinator of the ecosystem).

The project is funded by the participating companies and Business Finland.

Business Finland and companies involved in its digitalisation programs have joined forces to fund research and development activities with one billion euros in the upcoming five years. Spinverse is commissioned to help in getting the most out of the billion in this big digital transformation for Finland.

Digitalisation is expected to bring major benefits in health care, both as effective health care solutions and in cost savings. Finland is investing significantly in R&D of both fields to become the world leader in health tech in the upcoming years. CleverHealth Network is an innovation ecosystem where Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) and a group of prominent Finnish technology companies use health care data to develop together better health care solutions for Finns and successful export products for the companies. Spinverse facilitates the ecosystem, acting as a key driver for these new innovations in health tech.

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Nokia Bell Labs driven industry group is building key enablers for fast 5G network based on smart light poles, which will form the digital backbone of future smart cities. The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem project has developed the 5G smart pole concept where 5G base stations, a variety of different sensors, video cameras, displays and other devices have been integrated to light poles. This creates a novel platform providing fast, low latency mobile communications and possibilities to exploit huge amount of data to make new digital services for smart cities. The solutions have been piloted already during last two years at Nokia Campus in Espoo, Finland, and now the plans are to expand the piloting to real environment in Kera region of Espoo.

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