Winter Games 2018: EU-South Korean Project set to Showcase 5G Innovation

Leti, a research institute of CEA Tech, has announced that the European and South Korean project, 5GCHAMPION, will demonstrate the world’s first 5G platform Feb. 20-22, during the 2018 Winter Games.               

The 5GCHAMPION consortium, which includes 21 universities, research institutes and companies from Europe and South Korea, is supported by the European Commission and the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT. It developed a fully integrated intercontinental 5G network proof of concept that was deployed at the PyeongChang Olympic host city, Gangneung, two years ahead of the official launch of 5G networks.

Visitors on Yulgok Street, also called IoT Street, will be able to experience the network while riding the 5GCHAMPION bus between event venues in Gangneung’s main area. Wearing virtual-reality glasses, they can "visit" almost instantaneously and in 3D a site in Oulu, Finland, via a 5G intercontinental connection developed by the project teams. The data-transfer speed on this proposed 5G mobile network is 2.5 Gbps.

The project team also investigated new 5G waveforms for satellite communication and algorithms to enable 5G “while on the go” and traveling at up to 500 km/h, such as on high-speed trains.

EU-Korean Symposium on 5G Networks on Feb. 23 

The EU and Korean partners are sponsoring a symposium, “From 5G Challenge to 5GCHAMPION Trials at the IoT Street near the Winter Olympic Venue”, in Seoul, Feb 23.

Leading corporations from Europe and South Korea, including Nokia, Orange Japan, Thales Alenia Space, KT, SKT and Samsung, will join international institutes, such as ETRI and Leti, for presentations. Supported by the Korean Institute of ICT Promotion and the Ministry of Science and ICT, as well as the French and Finnish embassies in Korea, this event will present participants’ outlooks on how 5G technology will shape the future of communication, industry and society, and the value of cross-border collaborations.

5GCHAMPION, coordinated by Leti and ETRI, has eight European and 13 Korean partners. The project developed a new architecture that provides an efficient end-to-end system performance encompassing cutting-edge 5G radio-access, a core network and satellite technologies.

“This proof of concept is the first time that state-of-the-art terrestrial wireless communication, including future key enablers such as mmWave access, will be seamlessly combined with disruptive satellite communication,” said Emilio Calvanese Strinati, innovation and scientific director at Leti, and coordinator of the 5GCHAMPION project. “This technology will form a 5G network with multi-radio-access technologies (multi-RAT) that is optimized to serve user equipment in various applications.”