The West of England Combined Authority led a
consortium of 12 partners, including The Bristol
Port Company and the University of Bristol
Smart Internet Lab to demonstrate how P5G
can increase efficiency and productivity for the
logistics sector. Airspan, AttoCore, ADVA, Cellnex
UK and Unmanned Life are the tech companies
included in the project. Combined Authority help
businesses innovate, develop workforce skills, and
improve sustainability. This project was funded by
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
with a total value of £3,979,524.
Challenges
This huge project involves network connection of
three areas – Bristol Port as the primary test zone,
St Andrew’s Road, a nearby junction which is the
secondary and the Gravity Smart Campus which is
45 km away from Bristol. It was also expected that
there will be an improvement on the tracking of
supply chain, autonomous drone surveillance and
road traffic management.
Solution & Benefits
The implementation of Bristol Port’s P5G network was based on Airspan’s Open RAN architecture
which has become one of the highlight of this project. Small cells were deployed on strategic location
of the three areas.
This project led to positive results such as more efficient and real-time logistic tracking, improved traffic
management and geolocation, and autonomous system especially drone.
This milestone brings more vision for Combined Authority to build smart cities and attract new economic
opportunities and jobs by harnessing the advancement of mobile communications technology.
This project is also a testimony for Airpan Open RAN to run Mobile Edge Computing system or MEC,
a more advanced framework of cloud computing.
