On Thursday, Verizon’s 5G lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts held a demonstration, showing a knee-high humanoid robot moving up and down several steps on a wooden platform. This is a life-scale robot model designed to help rescue people trapped in life-threatening situations.
"With 5G, robots and operators can communicate immediately," said Yan Gu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
But 5G, like that little robot, still has a lot to develop and improve. Verizon and AT&T, the two largest wireless operators in the United States, have only enabled mobile 5G networks in a few locations. Sprint just launched its network in four cities this week, while wireless operator EE became the first 5G provider in the UK. Verizon customers now want to experience the rapidity of 5G, so they have to go to Chicago or Minneapolis, find a suitable place, and buy one of the few 5G mobile phones on the market. By the end of this year, Verizon plans to double the coverage of these two cities and add 5G networks in another 30 cities.
Nicki Palmer, head of product and technology development at Verizon, said at the presentation on Thursday, "If the only thing we can do with 5G is faster download speed, then we have missed the opportunity. 5G needs to be different. "
Palmer says the bigger goal is to make new experiences possible. For example, in the field of education, it is impossible to transfer people who study glaciers to real glaciers through virtual reality or holographic experience today.
When the next generation technology finally matures, a series of related technologies will flourish in a way that is not allowed by today’s 4G network. For example, communication between cars and sensors on highways or city streets.
The Internet of Things is more than just checking in with Nest thermostat or August’s smart doorbell. The situational awareness of soldiers and emergency personnel has become better and faster. Or your doctor can operate on you, and experts thousands of miles away will provide professional advice in real time.
Platforms from remote surgery to mixed reality and self-driving cars are expected to flourish. Christian Guirnalda, director of Verizon’s 5G lab, said: "They just do better on 5G."
In Thursday’s demonstration, the team also looked forward to another thing of 5G. The equipment in this field, such as the rescue robot at UMass Lowell, does not need much computing power, which means they can be lighter and enjoy longer battery life. They will rely on "edge computing", and servers in other places can do heavy work, such as processing high-definition video and sensor processing.
Hultsch Palcati, CEO of Southie Autonomy, a Boston-based robot software manufacturer, said: "5G allows us to get more computing power from our devices."
The advances that these companies are envisioning, such as high-performance self-driving cars, long-distance real-time cooperative surgeons, and high-speed Internet of Things, are the future that 5G has been shaking in front of us for some time, but the capabilities of 5G are not limited to this, and then the high-speed networks are no longer "fast" that can be experienced only on mobile phones, and they will make those fantasies that were previously seen as unrestrained become a reality in various fields.