Fast, faster, Adlershof!
The Technology Park is on the way to becoming the best-connected place within a 1,000 kilometre radius. This will soon include an exclusive 5G campus network that will create some crucial benefits.
This is where future is made. And it could not be made without high bandwidth, robust connections, and little to no latency. In short: it could not be made without 5G. The newest mobile network generation. Adlershof-based companies and institutes will soon be able to get the most out of mobile communication: The first 5G signal will be sent out via the campus network by Christmas. This will be a private 5G network exclusively for the core area of the Technology Park. “The advantage of such a closed-off network is that only few users share the available bandwidth and so it’s is more secure and robust compared to a public network and can be better adjusted to individual needs,” explains Wilhelm Prasser, who is responsible for the project on behalf of Logicalis GmbH, the company that is establishing the campus network in Adlershof together with siticom GmbH, its subsidiary. “This enables us to try out and test innovative ideas and business models under clearly defined conditions.”
In addition, a 5G showroom will be opened as an innovation hub in 2022. Wilhelm Prasser: “This is a place where an interested public can experience new 5G technologies in real life as well as develop and test their own use cases.” WISTA Management GmbH is providing a basic version of the network free-of-charge. Logicalis and siticom oversee the implementation of specific adaptations for their customers as well as the network’s integration and operation.
“Our task is to create the conditions that the companies in Adlershof’s Science and Technology Park need for economic growth,” says Roland Sillmann, managing director of WISTA. “This always includes looking at: What will the companies need in a few years? 5G will create a boost and that’s why it is so important to provide companies that are already working on 5G applications today with an environment for testing and developing them.” WISTA also wants to create new opportunities for companies that only have a vague idea of the role that 5G could play for them to find out more and try out new things. “The 5G technology will facilitate future applications that we can’t even imagine right now,” says Sillmann. “Above all, we expect 5G to rapidly advance the internet of things and, with that, the fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0.”
This is something that can be studied by looking at ASTI Mobile Robotics GmbH. Fast internet is key for the manufacturer of mobile robotics solutions: “Our vehicles exchange much information with a superordinate control station via radio, which you can imagine as a type of taxi command centre,” says Jan Zernickel, head of research and development. All orders are dispatched via the command centre to the robots, which, in turn, report back their current position, speed, and battery levels. “The key here is: the faster the internet, the more data can be transmitted. This, in turn, facilitates early detection of sources of error,” says Zernickel to emphasise the importance of 5G. Mobile robots rely on high availability, robustness, and guaranteed low latencies—seeing as huge amounts of data must be processed, wirelessly and in real time.
“Current robot models communicate predominantly via Wi-Fi, which leads to frequent interruptions and delays,” says Zernickel. “With 5G, we increase the reliability of our systems, reduce integration times, and it enables us to provide targeted maintenance and other services.” All these examples underscore why a 5G campus network is not only nice-to-have but provides us with a straight path into the future.
Chris Löwer für POTENZIAL
- Information on the communication infrastructure in the Technologypark Adlershof
- Website Logicalis
- Website ASTI Mobile Robotics
