Autonomous systems bring up new opportunities to industries and supply chains. At the same time, they demand new business models, and challenge industries, and society, to change.

Digitalization means a step-by-step change from products to intelligent solutions and toward autonomous systems via remote diagnostics, remote control, and optimization. An ideal autonomous system is by definition autonomous, but it is tightly linked to other systems, organisations, and people. To achieve the intended benefits of autonomous systems; increased efficiency, quality, safety, sustainability and reliability; we need to better understand requirements of the systemic change from the perspective of firms and business networks

In our essay, we rationalize why and how research on autonomous systems need to address the implications for firms’ and their business networks’ activities as well as the institutional implications for society at large. As a conclusion, we present six research themes and related research questions that increasing autonomy of systems raises.

Reseach themes

Research theme 1. Managing systemic change in development, integration, implementation of autonomous system. How to renew value creation and capture so that autonomous systems implementation and utilization is profitable? What kind of requirements are there for systemic change, and what are the phases toward profitable business?

Research theme 2. Ecosystem building, orchestration and synchronized change for autonomous systems, including business model transformation in firms. The ecosystems for autonomous systems challenge firm- and product- oriented business practises and requires new kinds of collaboration, competence and value sharing. What kind of new links between firms are needed, who is the “right” orchestrator and how to fairly share the benefits? How to synchronize the change in and between firms?

Research theme 3. Autonomous systems operational and technology platforms, their standardization locally, in Europe, and globally, and in different sectors of industry. The potential of digital marketplaces and shared technology platforms is understood but implementation is in its infancy in B2B sector. Standards are needed, but how to create and define them with competitors? When is a local approach best and where is global collaboration needed?

Research theme 4. Adoption and diffusion of autonomous systems technology, digital services and complex solutions between in business relationships; the capabilities and readiness of customers. To achieve the benefits of the new technology, it is often required that also customers and other ecosystem actors accept and adapt the new technology. How to make the new technology attractive for customers? How can the innovators – first movers – accelerate the change of late adaptors?

Research theme 5. Radical innovations in business strategy and execution of strategic change programs in ecosystems. Development and utilization of autonomous systems call for bold and strategic decision-making and abandoning old path-dependencies. Building a strong change-oriented mind-set, investment in innovation and keeping the current business profitable at the same time creates discrepancies. How to implement a strategy that contains disruptive elements? How to stand, or even exploit the uncertainty related to radical innovations?

Research theme 6. Decision-making and resilience; changes in organizations and in ways of working. Increasing autonomy challenges the prevailing mental models of management and forces to update decision-making criteria and practices to better fit the new systemic world. The nature of work, tasks and competencies required can change, and the readiness and willingness to change, i.e. resilience, become as prerequisite in all kinds of work. What kind of actions are needed to get the changes accepted and under way? How can firms share their best practises to foster ecosystem resilience?

The original RAAS white paper in Finnish can be read here.

Awake.AI has officially launched a new mobile app for the use of its Smart Port as a Service (SPaaS) solution, which provides maritime actors with improved situational awareness and more efficient port calls.

SPaaS is a real-time overview and collaboration tool which enables smarter operational decision-making and helps maritime businesses to become environmentally more sustainable, considerably benefiting the industry and society at large.

The new Smart Port Mobile app provides a more convenient way for users to access the company’s SPaaS solution on the go. Register for a free trial here.

Awake.AI said that with the Smart Port Mobile it is solving two main issues faced by all maritime actors today: poor communication caused by the lack of transparency and reliance on manual tools, as well as poor situational awareness.

SPaaS has already been offered as a desktop application for office use, and now the new mobile app provides also port personnel a convenient access to the solution on the go.

The app offers confidence and assurance to a smooth port operation. As an example, it allows port personnel to see the tasks that are assigned to them. They can mark the tasks as done when appropriate, as well as access real-time information as to any changes or delays to vessel arrival times may occur.

SPaaS provides a comprehensive overview and enables users to get the most out of their operations. It is a turnkey solution, easily implemented into any business process. The AI-based predictions of the solution is continuously improving and are significantly more accurate than other data sources used by the port actors today.

Awake.AI stated the benefits to include the following:

• Better operational planning and more efficient port calls
• Highly improved situational awareness
• Shared and transparent communication
• Greater operational efficiency

The ability to predict accurately originates from Awake.AI’s AI algorithms, utilizing multiple data sources, such as weather forecasts, vessel information and historical data. With more accurate predictions, all port call actors will save time and costs while increasing their operational efficiency.

To make precise predictions, Awake.AI also uses machine learning (ML) methods as an integral part of its service offering. ML enables progressive streamlining of operations by analyzing and gaining understanding from vast amounts of data. In addition, ML can provide a better general overview of the business environment.

Read more about the Smart Port Mobile on Awake.AI’s website.

The Finnish city accepted the award as recognition of its success in providing an attractive innovation and operating environment for forward-looking companies and educational and research partners. Its efforts on social, cultural, economic and environmental sustainability aim to discover solutions to urban sustainability challenges, such as inclusion, employment, climate change and economic recovery, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“Espoo is committed to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals by 2025, five years before the deadline,” highlighted Mayor Jukka Mäkelä.

“This is a good agenda for innovation work with companies and educational and research partners. It supports Espoo’s economic competitiveness and sustainability.”

The 270 000-resident city also called attention to its deep-rooted tradition of pursuing innovation through a network consisting of the likes of Fortum, Neste, Nokia, Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

For the innovations to be impactful, it is crucial that also local residents contribute to the process, stressed Mäkelä.

“We provide services that support the wellbeing and daily lives of our residents. If we want our services to be resident-oriented, residents need to be involved in our development work. We are successful in everything that people get involved in,” he declared.

Espoo will use the 100 000-euro prize primarily to support the innovation activities of children and young people.

Belgium’s Leuven was named this year’s capital of innovation in Europe. Cluj-Napoca (RO), Helsingborg (SE), Valencia (ES) and Vienna (AT) were the four other finalists in the competition, which annually casts the spotlight on cities that come up innovative solutions to social challenges that engage and empower their residents.

Read more from Good News from Finland website.

MaaS Global, the world’s first MaaS operator, is now carbon neutral. The company has calculated its carbon footprint and offset CO2 emissions from not only its operations but also from customers trips made by using the company’s award-winning Whim app.

– We are happy to announce that you can now take carbon neutral trips by traveling withWhim. On our path to sustainable freedom of mobility we must “avoid, reduce”, and for now, also “compensate”. We aren’t yet able to avoid CO2 emissions entirely, and​​ for this reason we have offset our full carbon footprint for 2019 as the first MaaS operator.We will also do this for 2020 and for the coming years, says Krista Huhtala-Jenks, Head of Ecosystem and Sustainability at Maas Global.

– As we do not have our own means of transportation, we are working closely with our partners to increase the green and emission-free service​​offering for Whim users. At the same time, we want to challenge the entire industry to develop carbon-free movement, she continues.

Global sustainability initiative to replace one million cars

To mark the World Car Free Day, MaaS Global has launched a global sustainability initiative. The company is today committing to replace 1 million private cars with Whim subscriptions by 2030.

– Transport is the only sector that hasn’t been able to cut its emissions below the 1990values. At the moment, one quarter of global emissions come from transport. If nothing changes, a whopping 40 % of global CO2 emissions will come from transport by 2030, says Huhtala-Jenks.

– Our dream is a world where you don’t need to own a car to lead a happy and hassle-free life. We want to help cities so that they wouldn’t have to make policies to restrict cars because there would be better alternatives available. We call this alternative sustainable freedom of mobility. For this reason Whim exists. But in order to succeed, we need help. We have created a global sustainability initiative to get commitment from the MaaS industry, as well as from people, to find better alternatives to private car ownership, Huhtala-Jenks continues.

Read more about global sustainability initiative:

https://whimapp.com/sustainability/initiative/

More information:

Krista Huhtala-Jenks, ​Head of Ecosystem & Sustainability, ​MaaS Global

krista.huhtala-jenks@maas.global

+358 40 759 3718

Self-driving cars have become a reality, but they still require human intervention. Even the most advanced autonomous technology cannot solve all traffic situations, as it sometimes requires decision-making logic machines are not capable of.

To test those scenarios, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) built Iseauto, a self-driving shuttle. Now for the first time, TalTech, German teleoperations company Pylot and Telia in Estonia are using 5G technology to test cross-border remote control of the driverless shuttle.

“When Iseauto requires manual intervention, an operator in the remote control center in Munich can take over the car, solve the situation and then release the control back to the automated system,“ explains Raivo Sell, Senior Researcher & Program Manager of Product Development and Robotics at TalTech.

5G solves two main issues. “Firstly, it enables much faster data speeds needed for high-quality live video transmission. Secondly, 5G has much lower latency, which means that the vehicle can be controlled remotely without a delay,“ Sell says.

Telia and TalTech have a long-term strategic partnership on research and development of digital technologies.

“We started the preparations for implementing the 5G technology in Estonia already in 2016. In the autumn of 2017, we showcased an excavator remotely controlled over 5G at the Digital Summit. Our current cooperation with TalTech on the Iseauto project takes our R&D process to a new level by testing the technology across country borders,“ says Telia Estonia’s CTO Andre Visse.

Read more and watch the video here.

One of the autonomous vehicles in the FABULOS pilot project last spring in Helsinki’s Pasila region was an ordinary-looking minibus. The only way to tell it’s not your everyday vehicle are the markings and sensors attached to it. But what truly matters, the technology, is located inside.

Built by the Chinese manufacturer Dongfeng, the Fengxing CM7 was introduced in 2013 and usually runs on diesel. Dongfeng has invested in the southern Swedish firm T-Engineering, which specializes in engine control and engine tuning. T-Engineering was given the task to convert the Pasila minibus into an electric vehicle. The diesel engine and all its parts, such as the fuel tank and the exhaust system, were removed and replaced with electric technology.

ELECTRIC CONVERSION WITH A LOW-VOLTAGE BATTERY

What makes this electric conversion special is the battery and the engine. As a prototype of an autonomous vehicle that will never be driven fast or in hilly terrain, the power of the car is not particularly relevant. The CM7 tops out at 30 km/h, which is more than enough for an environment like Pasila where the FABULOS pilot was taking place.

The inclusion of Vaisala’s digital weather information offering bolsters Hyundai’s focus on driver safety and positions the company as an advocate for innovative connected car services. 

Vaisala, a global leader in weather, environmental, and industrial measurement, today announced at TU-Automotive Detroit an agreement with Hyundai Motors to deliver Vaisala Infotainment Weather, a digital offering that provides drivers essential proactive information from in-vehicle infotainment systems about weather and driving conditions.

“With approximately one in every four traffic accidents stemming from inclement weather conditions, our wide-ranging service helps drivers remain aware of weather conditions along their routes and in close proximity to the vehicle’s current location,” said Markus Melin, Vice President of Vaisala Digital. “Even in locations where weather measurements are not easily obtained, our technology is able to predict conditions according to a driver’s route.”

Vaisala Infotainment Weather delivers location-based weather information – like temperature, precipitation, and wind speed – for Hyundai’s LIVE services. Building a successful in-vehicle weather service requires consideration of very dynamic weather conditions combined with the ever-changing position of the car, which demands highly sophisticated methods for local and timely weather data production and delivery.

Vaisala Digital in the automotive industry

In addition to providing an infotainment weather offering for connected cars, Vaisala Digital – which creates industry-leading digital solutions to support customers with weather critical operations — also offers advanced road surface condition datasets for automotive use cases. Leveraging more than 20 years of road weather experience, Vaisala delivers industry-leading sensors, a mobile data collection system, and world-class forecasting capabilities that provide real-time calculated driving condition forecasts (including the state of the road’s surface, visibility, and atmospheric weather events affecting driving) to any coordinate point around the globe. Vaisala forecasts are trusted in the winter maintenance industry by road authorities in a number of countries.

“Now that vehicles are increasingly connected, high-quality infotainment weather information is certainly a valuable commodity,” said Melin. “But leveraging today’s most advanced road weather technologies – beyond forecasting – to provide drivers with actionable information on road surface conditions, prediction of road friction, and other offerings will become invaluable in the future as vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems increasingly integrate onto our roadways around the globe. Accurate and detailed weather-related information and guidance is extremely useful for both drivers and connected vehicles.”

For more information about the Vaisala Infotainment Weather solution and the company’s other road weather technologies, please visit www.vaisala.com.

Lahti, Finland, has become the first city in the world to launch a personal carbon trading scheme to reduce emissions from transport. Personal carbon trading means that citizens will benefit from reducing their own mobility emissions.

“The CitiCAP app of Lahti rewards people when the CO2 emissions of mobility are low,” says Anna Huttunen, the project manager for sustainable mobility in the city of Lahti.

Every inhabitant of the city can download the free mobile app that automatically tracks the means of transport used. If the app tracks that the user has replaced driving a car with walking or biking, the app automatically gives the user virtual coins. These coins can be used to purchase tickets for local busses or swimming halls, bags and pedestrian reflectors, for instance.

When using the CitiCAP app, the user can see the personal carbon footprint from transport and how it evolves as they change habits.

In addition to reducing CO2 emissions, the goal of the CitiCAP (Citizens’ Cap and Trade Co-created) project is to collect and make available digital data about mobility. Using that data, the city of Lahti can develop new transport services for its citizens.

The app has been tested by a limited number of users for more than a year. During the peak of the coronavirus crisis, the application has provided valuable information on changes in movement patterns. In Lahti, car traffic decreased by approximately 30% and the number of bus passengers within Lahti decreased by almost 80%.

The app has been developed with the software development kit (SDK) from MOPRIM, headquartered in Helsinki.

“MOPRIM has developed unique AI technology to determine the transport mode of the user. The resulting data allows deeper understanding of people mobility, including the carbon footprint, and enables data-driven development of sustainable mobility,” says Petri Martikainen, CEO of MOPRIM.

The CitiCAP mobile app is available in Finland on Google Play and App Store, and its use is voluntary. The experiment will last at least until the end of 2020. The CitiCAP project has received funding from the EU’s Urban Innovative Actions initiative.

 

More information:
Anna Huttunen
Project Manager for Sustainable Mobility, City of Lahti
anna.huttunen@lahti.fi, t. +358 44 4826 176

Petri Martikainen
CEO, MOPRIM
petri@moprim.com, t. +358 50 5500 666

The project website:
https://www.lahti.fi/en/services/transportation-and-streets/citicap

 

Read the original news article on the website of City of Lahti.

Read the original news article on Highways magazine’s website.

A company consortium led by Nokia is targeting the global smart city markets, worth tens of billions of euros.  The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem has just completed a one-of-a-kind piloting environment that boosts the development of new data-driven services for cities both in Finland and abroad. It covers the route from Nokia HQ Campus in Espoo, Finland, to the near-by Kera railway station. Comprising of 19 smart poles with the latest 5G technology and altogether 250 interconnected devices it brings super-fast connectivity and extensive sensor network available for practical piloting of digital smart city services.

The LuxTurrim5G project has been progressing systematically from multi-disciplinary research to practice.  The 5G smart pole concept does not only boast a 5G base station integrated into a light pole but also weather and air quality sensors, video cameras, displays, an electric vehicle charging point and other devices. The concept has now reached its piloting phase for practical applications. The extensive pilot network of 19 smart poles has just been completed in Kera, Espoo, covering areas in Nokia’s Espoo Campus and extending to the nearby Kera railway station. The smart poles, using the so called millimetre wave 5G technology, bring high-speed 5G connectivity and an extensive network of sensors within the reach of the users.

”This is a globally unique smart city pilot where a high-speed and low latency 5G network, an extensive sensor network and a data platform bring novel services to the city, its people and community,” says Pekka Wainio, Project Manager, Nokia Bell Labs.  “Local data collected by the various devices, cameras and sensors within the network can be used to produce a multitude of local services through the open interfaces of the data platform. We have received wide interest on how the surveillance cameras and radar devices can be utilised in overall security surveillance, traffic and road quality monitoring, for remote control of self-driving vehicles and in other transport and logistics services,” Wainio continues.

The smart pole network itself, built by Nokia and its partners, comprises approximately 250 interconnected devices, such as three new generation 5G base stations (26 GHz by Nokia), more than 50 WiFi devices (60 GHz), 75 video cameras, 49 different sensors monitoring the air quality, weather, temperature, road surface state as well as CO2 levels etc. (Vaisala and others), nine radar devices (six traffic radars and three lidars), seven information screens, an electric vehicle charging station and a drone charging and landing station at the top of the pole (Rumble Tools).

In addition to the smart poles, the LuxTurrim5G pilot network also has two smart and safe bus stops (Connected Zone by Teleste,) and a separate city information display, showcasing how different sensors can be integrated into the elements found in the urban infrastructure. These are part of the “LuxTurrim5G smart urban furniture” we are developing for cities. Drones and self-driving vehicles, such as the self-driving shuttle bus (Sensible 4), are also an essential part of the piloting entity where the infrastructure, functionality and services for a smart city are developed in a holistic way.

From light poles to smart poles

The LuxTurrim5G smart pole concept has been developed to meet the future needs of cities. It is not about the light pole as such, as this is a completely new element forming an essential part of the key infrastructure of a smart city – its digital backbone. The recently implemented smart pole version already serves as a pre-commercial pilot product which helps to design the actual smart pole product family. The companies mainly responsible for the design and manufacturing of the pilot poles have been Tehomet Oy and Orbis Oy.

”This is the first large-scale smart pole pilot in Finland, and a globally significant project. The shift from traditional light poles to smart poles is a natural, but also a challenging task where every partners’ role matters. Currently we are already working with the next generation of smart poles and focusing on designing and productising a complete product family. Smart poles hold huge potential for global markets,” says Sami Huuskonen, Design Manager at Tehomet Oy.

The integration of several devices to form a well-functioning entity has been the key area of development in manufacturing of the smart poles.

“The limited space in the smart poles sets its challenges in the installation environment. The devices integrated into the pole also have different interfaces that must be connected to the same cabling system for data and power supply. The smart poles that are being piloted in the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem enable services that are needed today but they also serve as a platform for future services. We have designed our solution so that it is possible to add and replace equipment over the course of the smart pole’s life cycle. As the needs are evolving, it will not be necessary to replace the entire pole or dig new trunk cables under street level,” says Jani Linna-Aro, CEO of Orbis Oy.

Digital services for sustainability and smoother living

Espoo is going to transform the Kera area to a smart and urban district with at least 14,000 residents and 10,000 jobs in near future. Kera will become a showcase of sustainable urban development and an international reference case, where the city works together with its partners to create novel, clean and smart solutions to enhance the smoother living of its people. The future Kera will be a significant piloting ground for new solutions, paving the way to larger international projects. The role of Espoo as a pioneer of sustainable development appointed by the United Nations also promotes this approach.

”The newly implemented LuxTurrim5G pilot network and its smart route from Nokia Campus to Kera railway station showcase an excellent example of a new kind of bold and concrete co-innovation between companies and the city,” says Pekka Vikkula, Project Director at City of Espoo.

The LuxTurrim5G smart pole network will form the digital backbone of a smart city offering high-speed connectivity and a versatile sensor network. This in turn brings a wide variety of relevant on-line data available e.g. on environment, weather, traffic flows, public safety, usage of energy to be used by the city and companies for specific needs and to create holistic situational awareness.  Cities have also big amounts of own data which often is not widely utilized. The project has already been developing a data platform that is capable of processing large masses of data from various sources in a reliable and efficient manner. All this is important for building new data-driven services for the city needs. LuxTurrim5G partners are excited to move now to practical piloting of different service concepts in the actual live environment. This lays the foundations to the development of the Kera area and helps us to validate our solutions for scale-up in international projects. Through this Espoo pilot, the LuxTurrim5G consortium shares an ambitious target to expand to global smart city markets, worth tens of billions of euros.

Read the original news article on The LuxTurrim5G’s website. Photo: LuxTurrim5G