The first customer delivery of the EIT Digital Rapidly Deployable Networks Innovation Activity has been executed by the lead partner, Finnish Bittium Wireless Ltd. The Innovation Activity was launched in January 2017 to develop rapidly deployable network solutions for man-made or natural disaster situations.
The Digital Infrastructure Action Line focuses on enabling digital transformation by providing secure, robust, responsive and intelligent communications and computation facilities for the markets. The Action Line targets include: networking (the mobile broadband infrastructure, network softwarisation, and the Internet of Things); computing (cloud computing, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence); and security (privacy, cyber security, and digital ID management).
The Rapidly Deployable Networks Innovation Activity joins the resources of top EIT Digital partners from Finland, France, Germany and Italy in a bid to support communities across Europe by developing a rapidly deployable secure and robust wireless communication solution for emergency situations where the standard public network is compromised or not sufficient.
“Current network systems cannot guarantee communications in manmade or natural disaster situations, especially when it comes to internet communications requirements. The capability to rapidly deploy local communication capacity in disaster situations is needed in our increasingly Internet of Things dependent societies”, says Ari Hulkkonen, Senior Manager, Research and Technology at Bittium Wireless Ltd, and the EIT Digital Innovation Activity leader for Rapidly Deployable Networks.
The Rapidly Deployable Networks Innovation Activity aims to provide a field deployable wireless communications solution that is flexible and comprises automatic configuration and self-organising-networks. The end goal is to produce user-friendly services with minimum configuration needed, flexible interfaces to the user equipment and connections to other systems such as public safety and tactical networks and even commercial mobile phone networks.
“An operational communication network is a dramatically valuable asset for authorities and rescue organisations struggling often in extreme conditions to save lives and property. As the rapidly deployable network configures itself according to the available resources and the environment and selects the best connections, best routes for data and voice and reconfigures itself automatically – as necessary – it will deliver this asset”, Mr Hulkkonen explains.
In addition to the primary target of the rapidly growing public safety communications market, the resulting rapidly deployable network technology will also be applied to special applications such as tactical communications, industrial applications plants, and the mining and energy sectors which will increase the activity’s business potential. The concept will be further developed to provide bespoke products to meet individual customer requirements.
Due to a Non-disclosure Agreement, no further information of this customer delivery is available.
Background
The Rapidly Deployable Networks is one of 13 innovation activities of EIT Digital’s Digital Infrastructure Action Line for 2017. In addition to Bittium Wireless Ltd (Finland), other EIT Digital partners participating in the Rapidly Deployable Networks Innovation Activity include: Technische Universität Berlin (Germany), Green Communications SAS (France), and STMicroelectronics Srl (Italy).
