Island resort Sentosa will serve as a testbed for promising public sector 5G use cases, which could be rolled out on the mainland in the next five years to help realise Singapore’s Smart Nation vision.
The trials will leverage Singtel’s 5G network and edge cloud infrastructure, as well as Sentosa’s unique environment wherein applications for leisure experiences and businesses can be tested.
Fifteen live trials by public agencies are expected to be running at Sentosa by the end of this year. So far, 10 trials are already leveraging the lower latency, higher speed, and broader bandwidth of 5G technology for use cases in construction, manufacturing, healthcare and tourism.
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For instance, the Building and Construction Authority is working with Gammon to evaluate the use of 5G for construction applications. They will deploy fully autonomous robots with mounted 3D laser scanners for remote tracking of work progress, leveraging augmented reality technology for real-time quality control on building installations, and using drones with live video feeds for site inspection.
Meanwhile, the National Environment Agency and Nanyang Technological University are jointly trialling the tele-operation of the autonomous environmental service vehicle for road-sweeping. 5G’s high bandwidth and low latency are beneficial for streaming live camera feeds from the vehicle to the off-site operator, as well as transmitting haptic feedback and vehicular commands. These trials would enable an off-site operator to play the role of the on-board safety driver, a current requirement for autonomous vehicle (AV) trials, in the eventual deployment of AVs on public roads.
Other public agencies participating in the current trials include the Centre for Healthcare Assistive and Robotics Technologies at Changi General Hospital; Nanyang Polytechnic; and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) Institute for Infocomm Research.
