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Editorial

Dear reader,

Mobility is at the centre of many public discussions and technological developments. The rapid growth of transport and traffic, especially in urban areas, has come at the price of pollution, congestion, and accidents. Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) offers now the opportunity to tackle many of these problems, especially as many enabling technologies have now reached a high level of maturity. Think of robotics, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, high-performance computers and, of course, 5G.

The European Union is committed to using the opportunities that CAM offers, as stated on the EC’s Digital Single Market website: “The development and large-scale deployment of Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) provides a unique opportunity to make our mobility system safer, cleaner, more efficient and more user-friendly.” (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/connected-and-automated-mobility-europe)

In order to make the vision of better mobility a reality, the European Commission and industry have committed to large investments in R&D for CAM solutions.

In this issue of Eurescom message, we provide an overview on the current status of 5G-based CAM development in Europe and present se­lected CAM-related R&D activities under the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.

In the first article of the cover theme, Eurescom message editor Uwe Herzog presents an overview on 5G for Connected and Automated ­Mobility.

The next article presents cross-border 5G trials for cooperative, connected and automated mobility by 5G PPP project 5GCroCo. The following article by the 5G-MOBIX project also covers cross-border mobility solutions and in addition urban connected and automated mobility.

In an exclusive interview for Eurescom message, Dr. Maxime Flament, CTO of the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), explains the current status and future plans for connected and automated mobility using 5G in Europe and worldwide. The next article by 5G PPP project 5G-CARMEN presents the project’s CAM approach for Mobility Corridors. Finally, the authors from the 5GinFIRE project explain their city-scale 5G automotive testbed for open experimentation.

This edition of Eurescom message also includes a variety of further articles on different, ICT-related topics. See, for example, the new opinion article by Eurescom director David Kennedy on digital anxiety in his column “The Kennedy Perspective”. See also our “Events” section, which this time is focused on the IEEE 5G World Forum in Dresden and the 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials, which was part of the IEEE 5G World Forum. Finally, in the latest “A bit beyond”article you can learn about escaping the growing surveillance based on facial recognition.

My editorial colleagues and I hope you will find value in this edition of Eurescom message, and we would appreciate your comments on the ­current issue as well as suggestions for future ­issues.

Milon Gupta
Editor-in-chief

Sn@pshot

Tunabot

Mechanical engineers at the University of Virginia`s School of Engineering have developed a robotic fish, which mimics the speed and movements of a real yellowfin tuna.

The aim of the robotic tuna project was to better understand the physics of fish propulsion. The research could eventually inform development of the next generation of underwater vehicles, driven by fish-like systens instead of propellers.

For further information see the University of Virginia website at https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-engineering-led-team-unveils-robotic-fish-tunabot

 

© Photo by UVA Engineering. Image by UVA Engineering

Events calendar

9 – 13 December 2019

IEEE GLOBECOM
Waikoloa, USA
http://globecom2019.ieee-globecom.org

10 – 13 January 2020

CCNC 2020 – IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference
Las Vegas, USA
https://ccnc2020.ieee-ccnc.org 

24 – 27 February 2020 

MWC Barcelona 2020
Barcelona, Spain
www.mwcbarcelona.com
 

24 – 26 March 2020

6G Wireless Summit 2020
Levi, Finland
https://www.6gsummit.com

18 – 20 May 2020

NEM Summit 2020
Dublin, Ireland
https://www.nem-initiative.org

7 – 11 June 2020

IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)
Dublin, Ireland
https://icc2020.ieee-icc.org

15 – 18 June 2020

EuCNC 2020
Dubrovnik, Croatia
https://www.eucnc.eu

Digital anxiety

The new malady of the digital age

David Kennedy
Director of Eurescom
kennedy(at)eurescom.eu

While we know it is unproductive to spend long periods on-line, we can now observe the new stress, digital anxiety, which can appear when we’re disconnected. Digital anxiety is usually arising out of our own inability to manage our connected lives. Actually digital anxiety can have many forms, and the different forms can also combine in many ways to have quite a negative impact on our lives. I do not want to give the impression that everything about the digital era is negative but, as with most things in life, overdoing it can be harmful to us.

What is digital anxiety?

There are some obvious digital crisis situations that most people can identify with: who has not felt the moment of panic, when you cannot locate your phone while you are travelling? Suddenly your plane ticket, your hotel booking and even your ability to contact anyone are at risk. This stress can also happen on a smaller scale, when your phone tells you that you have only 5{b28ae05319d94bff0b4d65c5a9f4524dd588360f05c61ef440e1608e0a1c4144} battery left, and you have no means to charge it.

Probably the biggest impact the connected world has on us is the way we have become interrupt-driven. We react to messages, emails and calls, as if they are the most important thing in our lives at that moment. If we are honest, 99{b28ae05319d94bff0b4d65c5a9f4524dd588360f05c61ef440e1608e0a1c4144} of them do not need an immediate answer, but we feel compelled to react immediately – even in the evening when we should be sleeping.

This is part of what is called the “fear of missing out” – we stay connected, because we don’t want to be the one who does not know what is happening in our social group. The good aspects of connectivity, like being able to contact the family anytime, should not be overlooked, but we have achieved a good balance.

A particular evil in the digital era is the ability of social media to prey on our insecurities by making us always aware of social comparisons. We post pictures of our holidays, and even our breakfasts, not really knowing if we are doing it to share our experience with our friends, or just to make them jealous. And we are definitely at risk of spending too much time recording our experiences, at the expense of enjoying them in the moment.

The ultimate level of this is where some deem themselves to be “social influencers” on the basis that so many people are looking at their posts that other people should pay them to promote goods or services just because they are popular. We should avoid adopting these populists as role models as they add no value – better form your own opinions. It depresses me that the current generation of populist politicians have learned to trigger such emotional responses via social media without providing any substance or value. This is something we must learn to overcome.

The other aspect of the connected digital era that needs management is the work-life balance. It is easy today to keep answering emails in the evening and not give yourself the few hours to relax from the stresses of work. Some people maintain that it is easier to answer the mails in the evening without interruption, but that brings us back to the starting point that we are allowing ourselves to be interrupt-driven.

Anxiety in other aspects of life

Anxiety in itself is a natural response where the body, when faced with a threat, releases a rush of adrenalin into your system, which uses these anxious reactions to launch the “fight-or-flight” response. This is hard-wired in us from prehistoric times, when we needed to react to the risk of attack by wild animals. It was not just a healthy response, it was necessary to stay alive.

Today these responses can become a problem when we feel under continuous range anxiety to complete work tasks for a specific deadline, solve family or money problems, or any issue that causes tension and demands your attention to the point where the adrenalin kicks in but you don’t actually need to fight or flee.

Managing our digital lives

As we strive for greater connectivity capacity and “always-on” services, we need to ensure that the good aspects are enhanced and the less helpful ones are controlled. We need to set our devices so that, for example, social media posts and messages do not give us a notification for every message. Then we can choose the time and energy to invest in seeing our messages when it suits us. Time management is critical in all things, just as you set time to exercise, have dinner, etc., you can set a time for reading emails and switch them off for a few hours when you have something important to do.

Having said that, my technical support people have just told me that they need to disconnect me from the mail server for about 6 hours to update the mail server – I am already beginning to feel insecure about such a long disconnection, and it has not even happened yet. Maybe I need to investigate my own relationship with the digital connected world.

Overview on 5G for Connected and Automated ­Mobility

Connected and Automated Mobility services are one of the potential application areas of 5G that are currently being widely discussed. These services have a huge potential to make automotive mobility safer, more relaxing, and more economic.

Continue reading

Cross-border 5G trials for cooperative, connected and automated mobility – 5G PPP project 5GCroCo

This article presents cross-border 5G trials for cooperative, connected and automated mobility by 5G PPP project 5GCroCo.

Continue reading

5G for cross-border and urban connected and automated mobility

The article by the 5G-MOBIX project covers cross-border mobility solutions and in addition urban connected and automated mobility.

Continue reading

V2X in Europe or not?

In an exclusive interview for Eurescom message, Dr. Maxime Flament, CTO of the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), explains the current status and future plans for connected and automated mobility using 5G in Europe and worldwide.

Continue reading

Connected and automated road mobility in the European Union

The article by 5G PPP project 5G-CARMEN presents the project’s CAM approach for Mobility Corridors.

Continue reading

5G for automative innovation

In the final cover theme article, authors from the 5GinFIRE project explain their city-scale 5G automotive testbed for open experimentation.

Continue reading
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