During the week of July 15 to 19, the iTEAM of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) received a visit from the prestigious company Nokia as part of the innovative Advancing-5G-Immersive project. During their stay, Nokia presented and tested three next-generation immersive applications, aimed at fully leveraging the capabilities of 5G technology.
The Advancing-5G-Immersive project, involving prominent researchers from the Institute of Telecommunications and Multimedia Applications (iTEAM) at UPV, aims to develop and optimize immersive applications that will revolutionize various sectors, from education to entertainment and industry.
The visit took place within the subproject Advancing-5G-Immersive-Haptics coordinated by iTEAM researcher Raúl Lozano Teruel.
Testing of Immersive Applications
Nokia took advantage of their visit to conduct demonstrations and exhaustive tests of three immersive applications:
The first application, the Remote Driving App, focuses on Virtual Reality for Entertainment. During the visit, improvements in the integration of remote driving and the final integration of NaC (Network as Code), Nokia’s concept of simplifying network capabilities through APIs deployed over the 3GPP CAPIF network standard, in the application were presented, and finally, the incorporation of the HeadUP Display which allows environmental data to be visualized on the virtual car’s windshield. These new updates to the application enable the visualization of the immersive cockpit screens on Meta Quest 2 Virtual Reality glasses to enhance the immersion in the remote driving of robots (AGVs).
The next immersive application tested in the lab is an extension of the previous one and focuses on haptic devices, called “Pilot Reaction.” This proposal includes measurements of reaction times to different haptic stimuli so that the user can respond to potential obstacles, changes in a virtual traffic light (visual stimuli), and vibrations of a steering wheel (haptic stimuli) that appear in the environment created in the Remote Driving app.
The last tested application is related to Tele-education. It is an immersive application using virtual reality where the user is placed in physical installations of 5G antennas. In this photorealistic virtual environment, the user can view videos related to the objects they interact with, thereby enriching remote learning by placing the student in a simulated real space.
In addition to the tests, Nokia conducted several specialized training sessions for iTEAM researchers. These trainings focused on the use and implementation of the presented immersive applications, updates within the haptic communications lab centered on network slicing and prioritization at the radio level and the transport of the private 5G network available to iTEAM, all through quality and prioritization tests. They also shared the advantages and opportunities that 5G technology offers for developing new innovative solutions.
The collaboration between Nokia, a company committed to research and development, and UPV, recognized for its excellence in research, within the Advancing-5G-Immersive project lays the foundation for future research and developments in the field of immersive technologies, with the goal of positioning Valencia as a benchmark in innovation and 5G technology.
The Advancing-5G-Immersive project and the subproject Advancing-5G-Immersive-Haptics (TSI-063000-2021-111) are integrated into the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan and are funded by the European Union through the NextGenerationEU funds.