The European Commission's Innovation Radar is an initiative that identifies high-potential innovations and innovators emerging from research and innovation projects funded by the European Union. Innovation Radar helps bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world applications. This initiative fosters a vibrant ecosystem of European innovators and entrepreneurs, ensuring that ground-breaking research translates into tangible benefits for society.
The selected innovation is for Optical Edge node for 5G network that was designed and delivered by the Smart Internet Lab, University of Bristol, in collaboration with the Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications, as a result of our participation in the EU-funded H2020 5G-Complete project. This award-winning innovation is classified within the “Exploring” category, which encompasses early phases of technological readiness.
By integrating Quantum Key Distribution and Time-Shared Optical Network technologies to a 5G O-RAN network across the city of Bristol, a real-world demonstration of 5G over QKD-TSON was showcased. Traffic produced over multiple fibre and wireless links was combined and transmitted over a single long-distance, high-performance fibre link.
The same traffic was then split accordingly on the other end of the high-performance link, successfully implementing link multiplexing and demultiplexing. Smart Internet Lab designed, configured, installed and deployed an end-to-end platform incorporating 5G O-RAN, 5G Core, mmWave backhaul, video streaming application/server, game application/server, Automation/Orchestration platform, Monitoring and Analytics platform, FPGAs and TSON technologies.
Multi-vendor environment, integrating solutions from different partners such as Accelleran (5G O-RAN), Orchestration (Nextworks), mmWave backaul (Siklu), MEC Node (Mellanox).
Dr Constantinos Vrontos, Telecommunications Specialist at the University of Bristol, and the technical lead of the Bristol cluster for the 5G-COMPLETE project says, “The Smart Internet Lab and partners have delivered a telecoms platform placed right at the edge of technology innovation. Through 5G-Complete, a complete platform has been demonstrated, incorporating cutting-edge technologies such as TSON, QKD, O-RAN, and mmWave backhauling.” Constantinos lead the coordination between partners, the network/cloud designs and architecture, as well as the installation, integration, deployment and troubleshooting of the UK Cluster platform.
Funded by the European Commission (H2020), the 5G-COMPLETE project’s (2019-2023) aim was to revolutionize the 5G architecture, by efficiently combining compute and storage resource functionality over a unified ultra-high capacity converged digital/analog Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) Radio Access Network (RAN).
5G-COMPLETE’s results were validated in a range of scalable lab and field trial demonstrators in Athens (Greece), Lannion (France) and Bristol (UK). Upon completion, 5G-COMPLETE introduced new business models and novel research opportunities that will be streamlined into tangible results by its 13 consortium partners that expand along the complete 5G research and market chain.
Image caption: 5G-Complete's demonstration setup at MShed Museum, Bristol. Two 5G O-RAN cells were deployed on each side of the rooftop, incorporating multiple solutions developed by Smart Internet Lab and Partners such as the TSON and quantum, orchestration, and application services.