Bristol-based tech firm Zeetta Networks is to lead a consortium working on a £9m project to revolutionise UK manufacturing by harnessing the power of 5G.
The 11-strong consortium, which also includes the University of Bristol, its National Composites Centre (NCC) and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), is expected to show results as early as this September by using benefits of 5G, such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) in training and product design and development. 
It will continue until March 2022 when similar commercial 5G projects are expected to be underway across a variety of manufacturing hubs in the UK.
Bristol already has an international reputation as a testbed for 5G and its use in creating ‘smart cities’ – a role underpinned by it being crowned the world’s Smart City 2018 at the GSMA Global Mobile Awards.
The new 5G-ENCODE project will do the same for manufacturing by exploring how deploying 5G can give the UK a much-needed productivity boost and keep it at the leading edge of technology.
The funding is coming from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which believes it will show a clear business case and value propositions for using 5G in manufacturing, including developing lightweight composite materials for the aerospace and automotive sectors.
It is the UK government’s biggest investment in 5G for manufacturing so far.
DCMS Secretary of State Oliver Dowden said: “5G is about more than consumers getting faster and more reliable speeds. We’re determined to harness this revolutionary technology to boost the productivity and growth of UK industries. 
“We want Britain to be a world leader in 5G and since 2017 the government has invested millions in ground-breaking testbeds and trials across the country to achieve this.”
DCMS said it selected Temple Quay-based Zeetta as the lead for 5G-ENCODE because of its world-class expertise in software-defined networking (SDN), which will be used in the project alongside other Zeetta products.
These technologies will manage the private 5G network and allow a range of different industrial applications and services to be delivered over the same network infrastructure.
Zeetta worked on two other DCMS 5G projects last year – RuralFirst, which extended 5G connectivity to rural businesses and communities across the UK, and SmartTourism, which explored tourism applications aiming to enhance visitors experience and safety using 5G technologies.
Zeetta Networks CEO Vassilis Seferidis said: “Zeetta is proud to be leading the 5G-ENCODE project on behalf of a consortium of such renowned industrial innovators. Our company has a strong track record in delivering 5G solutions based on our groundbreaking network splicing-and-slicing technology which are key enablers in multi-domain orchestration.
“The technology will be applied across public and private networks for seamless and customised delivery of 5G services.
The ability to dynamically slice the resources of the network according to the demands of users and applications is a fundamental difference between 5G and previous mobile technologies and it is expected to play a transformational role in improving industrial productivity.”
The NCC, based on the Bristol & Bath Science Park, is one of seven centres that form the UK’s High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC). It works globally to accelerate the adoption of high-value composites in the UK’s aviation, automotive, renewable energy and other hi-tech industries.
Its CTO Dr Enrique Garcia said: “As world leaders in composite research, the NCC provides beyond state-of-the-art capabilities for industry.
“An industrial scale 5G testbed at the NCC will showcase a step change in security, reliability and connectivity, providing companies of all sizes a risk-free environment to evaluate and capitalise on the capabilities offered by 5G.
The testbed is part our wider digital engineering strategy in the West of England which will form a national asset to catapult the application of digital technologies into the engineering sector.
“This programme affords us and our industrial partners a unique opportunity to collaborate with prominent experts in the telecommunication, digital and software industry.”
Other consortium members include Telefonica, Siemens, Toshiba, Solvay, Baker Hughes, Plataine and Mativision.
