Quortus has announced its participation in AutoAir, an ambitious project designed to develop 5G cellular technology for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Earlier this month, the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) announced that AutoAir, which is led by Airspan Networks and includes ARM, Blu Wireless and McLaren, has been selected as part of its 5G Testbeds and Trials project.
The AutoAir project is a 5G testbed for connected and autonomous vehicles, and is part of the UK's £25M 5G digital strategy. AutoAir brings together a large number of leading 5G players and the pioneering research at Surrey University’s 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC). The project consortium includes; 5GIC at the University of Surrey, Dense Air Limited, McLaren Applied Technologies, Blu Wireless Technology Limited, Quortus Limited, Millbrook, Real Wireless, ARM, Cobham Wireless, and Celestia Technologies.
The 5G technologies developed as part of AutoAir will initially be used in the validation and development of CAVs at the UK’s leading vehicle testing and validation ground, Millbrook. The project will also accelerate the deployment of 5G cellular networks and autonomous vehicles in the UK, driving early implementation of these key emerging technologies.
Quortus is an established contributor to 5G implementation and deployment, and its applications in areas such as transportation, retail, healthcare and the Internet of Things (IoT). The company is the industry’s leading supplier of virtualized mobile core network solutions: essential wireless network functionality that ensures that devices stay connected as they move around the network, establishes and manages calls and data connections, ensures security and privacy, implements access policies, and enables billing. Building on its leadership position in 4G core networks, Quortus is already deploying 5G-aligned technologies such as network slicing, edge computing, and control/user plane separation (CUPS).
AutoAir uses a ‘neutral host’ model that allows many operators to share a single network built by a third-party infrastructure provider. A 5G network with virtualized (software-based) core operations is a particularly attractive solution for such applications, since its capabilities can be tailored on a case-by-case basis to the requirements of each operator in a process known as network slicing. This in turn allows operators to offer a range of different services with different performance and price points.
