Smart Transportation with Dynamic Virtual On-Board Units powered by 5G
SMATRA-5G is a vertical experiment led by ODINS that seeks to improve smart mobility by integrating Virtual On-Board Units (vOBUs) into vehicles, leveraging 5G connectivity and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC). vOBUs act as proxies for the physical on-board units, managing data exchange and analytics tasks, optimizing energy consumption, reducing communication channel congestion, and ensuring service continuity during vehicle mobility between 5G cells.
The experiment is being conducted at the University of Valencia (UPV) facilities, which offer standalone 5G coverage, multiple cells, advanced edge computing capabilities, and an urban and semi-urban environment ideal for evaluating the dynamic deployment and automatic migration of vOBUs in real time.
Project objectives
vOBU Deployment and Validation Testing
The main objectives of the experiment include:
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Dynamic vOBU Deployment: Implement the ability to deploy vOBUs near vehicles using the UPV’s MEC and 5G infrastructure, ensuring low latency and efficient data processing.
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Automatic Migration: Demonstrate automatic vOBU migration between 5G cells to ensure service continuity and seamless traffic prioritization.
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Integration with Advanced 5G Capabilities: Incorporate geolocation, low latency, high reliability, and CAPIF/NaC APIs for efficient management of the NetApp vOBU.
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Network Application Validation: Evaluate the performance of the NetApp vOBU integrated with 5G core and MEC, ensuring optimal performance in mobility scenarios.
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Real-World Testing: Run tests in urban and semi-urban conditions, evaluating dynamic deployment, seamless migration, and reliability and scalability metrics.
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Exploitation and Dissemination: Publish scientific articles, present results at conferences (EuCNC, 6G Summit), show demos at international fairs, and maintain a digital presence to maximize the project’s impact.
Strategic sectors
The SMATRA-5G project focuses on smart mobility, connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), with direct applications in urban transport, logistics, and safe mobility. The integration of vOBU with MEC and 5G addresses critical needs for low latency, energy efficiency, and service continuity, aligning with the growth of the global connected vehicle market, estimated at USD 1.5 trillion in 2022 and projected to reach USD 13.632 trillion by 2030.
SMATRA-5G strengthens ODINS’ position in European Horizon Europe projects, demonstrating its ability to lead high-impact technical initiatives and develop robust commercial solutions for the emerging smart mobility and autonomous vehicle sector.
The SMATRA-5G subproject is funded by the open call of the European project IMAGINE-B5G, grant agreement No. 101096452, within the HORIZON-JU-SNS-2022-STREAM-D-01-01 call of the JU SNS Programme of the European Union.
