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arcelona has had for a few weeks the Thinx | 5GBarcelona laboratory, a space aimed at startups, SMEs and corporations and designed to experiment and validate new services and applications with 5G technology. This space has been made possible thanks to the collaboration of Telefónica and 5GBarcelona.
The laboratory, aimed at startups, SMEs and corporations, aims to make Barcelona one of the main European digital innovation hubs in the field of 5G. The purpose of this laboratory is, therefore, to shorten the time to market for pre-production products and services, as well as to increase the speed of other specific research pilots in 5G technology.
DIFFERENTIAL VALUE
The laboratory was created with the aim of making Barcelona one of the European digital innovation hubs in the field of 5G. This unique test bench in the country will also function as a product accelerator as it facilitates technical support and knowledge transfer of two 5G technologies, such as LTEM and Narrowband IoT. These technologies are equipped with advanced capabilities especially relevant for the industry, such as lower battery consumption, reinforced indoor coverage and support for a higher density of connected objects.
Supporting and mentoring research pilots in 5G technology, increasing the attraction of talent in the new technologies environment, being a driving force for development and bringing new technologies closer to develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Barcelona, and by extension throughout Catalonia, are other objectives of the laboratory. The laboratory thus becomes a coworking and acceleration center, but also a technical support and know-how center.
The differential value that Thinx | 5GBarcelona brings to companies is an advanced environment that reproduces with a year in advance the technologies and telecommunications networks in which they will have to operate. Testing on this type of environment implies a direct reduction in the time to market of their prototypes and, in addition, the opportunity to simulate particular atmospheric conditions, to test in low coverage conditions, or how batteries behave in one environment or another.
SUCCESS OF ITS FIRST PILOT
The startup EnGiDi has been the first to test the infrastructure of Thinx | 5GBarcelona, where it has tested its device designed to improve the occupational safety of workers in construction sites and large infrastructures by monitoring their movements in real time.
During the testing, it was possible to verify that EnGiDi is capable of measuring the thermal stress to which the worker is exposed, providing the height at which the operator is located, and warning of falls they may suffer while performing their work, in addition to other variables. All this information, with the interaction with 5G networks, can be collected in real time and allows a large number of workers to be monitored.
ABOUT 5GBARCELONA
5GBarcelona is a public-private initiative that constitutes an open and neutral digital hub for the validation and adoption of 5G technology and applications in a real city environment. The initiative is promoted by the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Council, Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation, the i2CAT Foundation, the Telecommunications Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTTC), Atos, and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC).
5GBarcelona aims to transform the metropolitan area of Barcelona into a reference innovation laboratory in 5G with an open experimental infrastructure to test, prototype, and implement new digital solutions.