Welcome to the second episode of 5GMETA interviews, where we speak with our partners to find out more about their organisation and their role in the project.

The 5GMETA Open Platform aims to leverage car-captured data to stimulate and facilitate innovative products and services, while feeding them the data in a configurable manner. As a result, 5GMETA will empower the automotive ecosystem from industry players to new entrants, granting access to interoperable car-captured data. With a consortium of 12 partners, 5GMETA is continuing the work to develop the best methods to make use of a very valuable set of car-captured data exploiting the features provided by 5G networks.

Our next interview is with the 5GMETA Partners ICOOR and a member of its consortium, UNIMORE.

ICOOR (Interuniversity Consortium for Optimization and Operations Research) is an Inter-University Consortium interested in topics related to Optimization & Operational Research, and involved in several projects such as 5G-LOGINNOV, FENIX, MobiDataLab, eCharge4Drivers, and OLGA. ICOOR aims to foster the research and apply well known Optimization & Operation Research approaches and techniques to resolve concrete problems encountered on a daily basis, such as Traffic Management issues and Logistic Optimisation.

The HiPeRT (High-Performance Real-Time Laboratory) Lab from UNIMORE (University of Modena & Reggio-Emilia, which is also part of the ICOOR Consortium) involves more than 40 researchers developing algorithmic and software solutions through the whole technological stack, from low-level hardware profiling to Real-Time Operating Systems & Hypervisors, and parallel programming models and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning algorithms. During the past years, the Lab has acquired a strong expertise in this field by applying such knowledge to various embedded systems and use cases, within the context of industrial and European research projects like: Hercules, Prystine, Class, SECREDAS, and focusing more specifically on Automotive & ADAS Systems that are a concrete example of High-Performance Real-Time system.

During the first year of the project, ICOOR & UNIMORE have been actively involved in the project from a technical & non-technical point of view, through participation in all work packages, excluding the WP1 related to project management. Moreover, they are leading the Use Case 3 “Road Safety & Awareness” as well the Work Package 5, which will evaluate and validate the 5GMETA Platform and the 3 use-cases that will demonstrate its potential.

What prompted ICOOR & UNIMORE to join the 5GMETA consortium and how does the project fit into the priorities and strategies of ICOOR & UNIMORE?

As mentioned earlier, ICOOR has been involved in various research projects connected to 5GMETA, such as 5G-LOGINNOV, which is from the same call, as well as MobiDataLab. 5GMETA is a project that falls within the scope of interest of ICOOR: Optimization and Operations Research applied to Road Traffic Management & Smart Mobility & Data Sharing.

As for UNIMORE, the HiPeRT Lab has acquired a solid experience related to automotive & ADAS System through the recent years. Moreover, the current convergence between automated & connected vehicles under the umbrella of CCAM means a growing interest for connected vehicles and for the exploitation of automotive data, which will facilitate the development of autonomous vehicles.

Can you tell us about the role of ICOOR & UNIMORE in this project?

ICOOR & UNIMORE participate in most of the project activities, and more specifically they:

  • Lead the Use-Case 3 “Road Safety & Awareness” and participate in its implementation together with other Use-Case 3 partners;
  • Lead the WP5 “Actors Integration & Services Validation” related to 5GMETA Platform & Use Case evaluation and validation;
  • Lead T5.2: Common Evaluation Framework & T5.4: Innovative Services integration to 5GMETA;
  • Lead T6.5: Future plans beyond 5GMETA to catalyse new business opportunities & T7.4: Commercialisation Strategy & Exploitation Activities;
  • Participate to technical activities related to 5GMETA Platform in WP3: Network Functions as a Data Platform & WP4: Data and Demonstrators Generation.

Can you give us updates about the latest developments?

In this period, the focus of ICOOR & UNIMORE is mainly on the implementation aspects related to both the Use Case 3 and the 5GMETA Platform. In the meantime, the review meeting preparations have started and we are trying to identify what will be demonstrated for the first release of 5GMETA Platform & Use cases at project pilot sites that are located in Spain, France and Italy. ICOOR & UNIMORE are also leading the development of the project exploitation and commercialisation plan.

What are your next steps in the project?

The consortium is focusing on the incoming project milestones related to the release of the Platform (Milestone #5) as well as the initial project demos (Milestone #6) and mid-project report (Milestone #7). These milestones are very important for the project and all the partners are doing their due diligence.

How will ICOOR & UNIMORE use the results from the project? Do you have any plans to build upon these results for future initiatives?

Based on the field of interest of both ICOOR & UNIMORE, it is clear that the project’s results will be used in different but still complementary ways. For ICOOR, it means increasing its knowledge and experience in the field of Traffic Management & Smart Mobility, whereas for UNIMORE it will help with the transitioning from ADAS & autonomous vehicle to the field of CCAM where automotive data should be formatted accordingly and exchanged based on current standards like ETSI C-ITS. We also wish to exploit the “network effect” generated by the project, willing to improve collaboration with old and new partners.

Final words: Do you want to add anything?

To summarize, the 5GMETA project aims to develop a new open-platform dedicated to automotive data where data producers and consumers are both taken into consideration, which will facilitate the development of new innovative services, introduction of new actors in the market and finally help with the monetization of automotive data. The latter aspect is very innovative and represents something quite new for the field as well for the consortium. Therefore, we expect all the projects partners to gain a solid knowledge related to the monetization of automotive data.