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Called the Future Networks Lab, it has been created with sponsorship and equipment from BT, IBM, PTC, Semtech, ServiceNow, Siemens and Texas Instruments.
Technologies covered include LoRaWAN, SigFox, NB-IoT and LTE-M – and it also has a 5G node and access to the other interconnected UK 5G test beds, including the Catapult’s 5G Brighton, launched in September last year.
Digital Catapult CEO Jeremy Silver (right) and Semtech’s David Armour at the Future Networks Lab
“Today’s companies need modern, efficient and resilient technological infrastructure,” said Catapult CEO Jeremy Silver. “Future Networks Lab will provide some of the key building blocks to help unlock that developing infrastructure and the new services which will run on it. Together [with the partners], we are helping companies of all sizes access the latest IoT enabling technologies, developing collaboration opportunities and running programmes which will bring all sorts of experts together in an inspiring space.”
The lab provides:
- Physical data networks and test beds
- A learning environment for networks, their ecosystem and potential applications, including holding tailored workshops.
- Access to independent technical and innovation expertise, including providing market reports and technology reports.
- Opportunities for large organisations, start-ups and network providers to meet and collaborate. “ Digital Catapult will support you in combining our own in-house technology experts with other partners in start-ups and academia to conduct collaborative research and identify new solutions together,” according to the Catapult.
Electronics Weekly spoke to Semtech, one of the companies that contributed to the cost of the Lab, and also the chip firm behind LoRa, a long-range (city-scale) building-penetrating low data rate IoT network – it has has installed a LoRa network at the Lab.
“They contacted us to sponsor and be involved with Future Networks Lab,” Semtech marketing manager David Armour told Electronics Weekly.
The example LoRa network is a smart building demonstrator which includes a variety of sensors installed around the Digital Catapult headquarters, monitoring the environment and energy usage. Real-time analysis of the data is presented on a graphical dashboard to show conditions within the building.
“People can come in and see a real use-case,” said Armour. “They can quickly understand what it can do, and they can develop applications around that.”
Thousands of devices can be accommodated per LoRa ‘gateway’ (basestation), and users can either install their own gateway – in a home or factory, for example, or pay a service provider for bandwidth on their gateways. Range is up to 50km.
Digital Catapult
Catapults are the UK Government’s attempt to create something like the German Fraunhofers – institutions that bridge the gap between research and manufacture (known as technology readiness levels four to six – TRL4-6), where manufactures work with researchers and other experts towards manufacturable products using equipment at the Catapult’s site.
Rather than virtual creations, they are real places with real equipment, funded partly by the Government, via Innovate UK for example, and from companies that use them.
This partly-funded model de-risks such translational research, as does encouraging companies to work collaboratively on projects.
As with Fraunhofers, there are multiple Catapults dotted over the UK, each one handling a different subject. The Digital Catapult is on the Euston Road in London, opposite the British Library.
