The coronavirus epidemic has turned into a pandemic. The lack of hindsight and visibility in the face of increasing numbers of victims and the overloading of emergency services has led to the lockdown of half the planet. This containment impacts and will impact all economies, but even more so the economies of developing countries. A
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Inmarsat, a specialist in global, mobile satellite communications, has launched a new Rail Telemetry and Communications Solution for the global rail industry.
The solution provides real-time data transfer and push-to-talk (PTT) communications for rail operators working in remote areas across the globe, connecting drivers and railway staff to drive operational efficiencies and improve the overall safety of the railway. This builds on Inmarsat’s existing work with the rail sector.
Railways are more critical than ever in supporting the global movement of goods in remote areas. However; there are many challenges facing today’s railway operators, including optimising network capacity, carrying out vital maintenance work, improving health and safety and minimising the impact of adverse weather conditions.
These are exacerbated in large regions where sections of the railway pass through black spots – areas of minimal or zero cellular network coverage. As trains travel through these areas, railway staff are unable to communicate, or send and receive any data from trains to the control centre, leading to inefficiencies and potentially safety concerns.
Inmarsat’s Rail Telemetry and Communications Solution leverages its Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), which offers industry-leading reliability of up to 99.9% uptime. Low form factor satellite terminals, such as the new Cobham EXPLORER 323, are mounted on locomotives providing real-time GPS, telemetry and PTT capabilities anywhere in the world.
This means control centres can efficiently and safely monitor and schedule the movement of locomotives, rolling stock and goods across an entire rail network, while enabling communications with crew wherever they are located.
Steven Tompkins, director of Sector Development at Inmarsat, comments: “Inmarsat’s new Rail Telemetry and Communications Solution builds on projects with leading rail operators in Latin America and development work with our hardware and service provider partners.
We are confident the solution provides the most reliable data and communications service for train companies, and will lead to a paradigm shift in the safety and efficiency of remote rail operations.”
An important feature of the solution is the integration with existing equipment on board. The Cobham PRISM PTT solution integrates easily into the locomotive’s existing radio, so the rail operator doesn’t have to get rid of their existing trusted equipment.
PRISM PTT, a service powered by Cobham SATCOM’s innovative PRISM (Private Routing & Intelligent System Management) technology enables the BGAN PTT Solution to switch between connectivity types such as UHF or VHF, 3G/4G and satellite making the solution cost-effective and easy to use. The switching process is unique in the market because it is completely seamless and offers an economical approach to voice communications.
“As well as being relied on to transfer critical data in real-time, Inmarsat’s Rail Telemetry and Communications Solution is unique in providing a PTT voice communication feature that can switch between connectivity types seamlessly, without any lag in reconnection,” continues Tompkins.
“This provides operators complete confidence that data will always be transferred, the latest technology on board will stay operational and voice communications with drivers and crew can be maintained wherever the train is located.”
Henrik Norrelykke, vice president, Global sales & marketing at Cobham adds, “Cobham SATCOM is excited to work with Inmarsat to launch the new Rail Telemetry and Communications Solution.
Utilising the Cobham EXPLORER Mobile Gateway, the PRISM PTT+ solution enables easy integration into any existing radio equipment, making it simple for organisations across a range of industries to upgrade their trusted 2-way radio capabilities.”
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UltraSoC and Canis Automotive Labs announced a partnership that addresses one of the most serious cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the automotive industry. This, say the companies, is the lack of security features within the CAN bus, which is commonly used to interconnect in-vehicle systems such as brakes, steering, engine, airbags, door locks, and headlights.
The partnership between the two companies will yield hardware-based intrusion detection and mitigation techniques for common exploits on the CAN bus. These include automatic hardware anti-spoofing; defence against bit-level attacks such as the Bus-Off attack and bit-glitching; and resistance to denial of service (DoS) style attacks.
The collaboration centres on the deployment of Canis Labs’ CAN-HG technology, a new fully-compatible augmentation of the standard CAN bus protocol that includes bus guardian security features, and has the added benefit of being able to carry payloads twelve times larger than standard CAN frames.
When combined with UltraSoC’s semiconductor IP for detection and mitigation of cyber threats, CAN-HG allows designers to secure their CAN bus designs at the hardware level. The cybersecurity capabilities enabled by the collaboration employ fast bits within the CAN-HG augmented part of a CAN frame to add security information to CAN frames.
This can be used by UltraSoC’s protocol-aware monitoring hardware to identify and block suspicious or unauthorised traffic traveling over CAN. These new capabilities will be refined and proved for deployment as part of Secure-CAV: an ambitious project that seeks to improve the safety and security of tomorrow’s connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).
Aileen Ryan, UltraSoC CSO, comments: “Automotive cybersecurity requires an ecosystem approach. We’re delighted to add Canis Labs to our list of partners working in this area, which already includes NSITEXE-DENSO and Agile Analog; as well as our partners in the Secure-CAV project, Copper Horse and the Universities of Coventry and Southampton.
Up to now the industry has been forced to use sticking plaster solutions to defend CAN interconnect, relying on software techniques or perimeter security. Incorporating Canis Labs’ innovative CAN-HG technology into UltraSoC’s products allows us to secure the vehicle ‘from the inside out’: within the underlying electronic hardware.”
Ken Tindell, Canis Labs’ CTO, adds: “The most effective way to protect a CAN bus from attacks is to deploy a hardware security device – or better still, use semiconductor IP to incorporate hardware protections into the underlying system.
We believe that the combination of UltraSoC and Canis Labs IP provides a robust solution to CAN security, which is one of the most pressing problems for any CAN bus user – whether they are in automotive, aerospace, or any other industry sector.”
CAN is a hugely successful interconnect protocol which emerged in the 1980s in response to the need for an efficient, lightweight interconnection method that could cope with the harsh environments found in vehicles. Today it remains a common choice not only in the automotive industry but also in industrial, cyberphysical and robotics applications, where safety is paramount. But while it is physically robust, CAN is almost entirely lacking in cybersecurity features.
Most existing approaches to CAN security are software-based, meaning that they are often unable to react quickly enough to prevent protocol-level attacks. Because it is hardware based, a joint Canis Labs / UltraSoC solution can react quickly enough to prevent an attack from completing. This has two implications.
First, many exploits rely on creating a “window of opportunity” during which the system is in a vulnerable or unknown state. A fast reaction time can eliminate this window and significantly improve the overall robustness of cybersecurity defenses.
Second, CAN bus is used in many cyberphysical systems, in which elapsed time equates to distance traveled. A faster response time therefore has significant benefits in terms of mitigating the physical consequences of an attempted intrusion, better protecting the safety of citizens and infrastructure.
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A global specialist in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions, Cradlepoint today announced its expansion into Europe with senior hires, investment in new teams and new product offerings.
The US-based company aims to build upon, a clear addressable wireless WAN (wide area network) market in Europe and the emergence of 5G networks. The company is reports it is now ready to truly ‘go global’ in 2020, winning more customers across Northern, Central and Southern Europe.
Evert Suur, previously head of channels for Northern Europe at Forescout, joins Cradlepoint as area director for Northern Europe. He brings to the role 25+ years of experience in the IT and networking industries and will be responsible for driving forward Cradlepoint’s go-to-market strategy in the Netherlands, Belgium and the Nordics.
Lorenzo Ruggiero also joins the company, as area director, this time for Southern Europe. Based in Milan, Lorenzo will lead customer satisfaction initiatives, partner relationships and revenue growth across Italy, Spain, France and Portugal. Ruggiero joins from Vodafone and previously worked at French software company, Infovista where he was in charge of leading the enterprise market proposition.
There will be expansion and new hire announcements for Central Europe in the coming months.
In each region, a sales and support team will be built throughout 2020, with team leaders, sales engineers and business development executives being hired. Cradlepoint’s ‘go-to-market’ strategy in Europe will be driven through third parties and partner programmes in each geo, with the company actively recruiting partners across Europe as part of its expansion plan.
James Bristow, SVP EMEA, Cradlepoint comments, “We invented the wireless WAN/ Edge movement and lead the industry. This will grow to a US$5 billion (€4 billion) market in EMEA by 2025 – but now it’s time to establish our presence in Europe and tap into the growing demand for mobile, branch and IoT networks. We want to win more Fortune 500 companies in the year ahead and dominate the market as 5G infrastructure rolls out across the region.”
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, Cradlepoint has been rolling out new solutions to support the European market. The organisation has seen an increase in demand for products that can support pop-up healthcare environments, home working and retailers to onboard an influx of new staff quickly and securely. Some of its new product offerings include:
Bristow concludes, “We have responded rapidly to the needs of our customers in Europe during the COVID-19 crisis with best in-class products and solutions in the wireless WAN market. We are confident, that when we come through this crisis, the rise of high speed wireless 4G Gigabit LTE and 5G networks will present huge opportunities for enterprises to cut the wire and build better, more agile and manageable networks. A huge number of ideas, innovations and new companies will be born out of the 5G movement globally, and Cradlepoint is at the forefront of this change.”
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Innovations in technology continue to offer hope in the fight against the spread of coronavirus. From thermal sensors which detect symptoms to track and trace apps, it seems inevitable, says Alicia Asin, co-founder and CEO of Libelium, that new technology holds at least part of the key to enabling us to return to some sense of normality.
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RoboSense has teamed up with DT Mobile to deploy the first Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) solution based on the MEMS solid-state LiDAR in Xiong’an New Area, Hebei, China. RoboSense is an autonomous driving LiDAR perception solution provider, and DT Mobile is a China-based communication equipment manufacturer.
This marks the start of MEMS solid-state LiDAR being used in V2I projects. Prior to this, there were several pilot projects of RoboSense LiDAR solution for V2I operating in Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The RoboSense LiDAR developed according to the roadside perception needs of the V2I system, gives autonomous vehicles eyes from the sky to accurately sense every traffic participant, ensuring traffic safety and efficiency as well as information services applications.
Xiongan New Area in North China’s Hebei province is on the cusp of building a smart city with new technologies. Its first “5G and smart bus” V2I pilot project was jointly built by Hebei radio and television information network group (HBTN), China Communications Construction, and DT Mobile.
The HBTN is responsible for the deployment of the 5G network environment; China Communications Construction is in charge of the construction of the road infrastructure; DT Mobile manages the transformation of the vehicle end, C-V2X equipment, and end-to-end solutions, while RoboSense provides one-stop roadside LiDAR solution (including sensor hardware and perception algorithm software).
As the main hardware in the project, LiDAR breaks through the limitations of conventional sensors as cameras (easily affected by ambient light) or millimetre-wave radars (with low ranging accuracy). LiDAR can actively emit lasers to detect and collect 3D environment data in real-time with high ranging accuracy, adapting to different light environments and can operate24 hours a day. The RS-LiDAR-M1 is intelligent, low-cost, stable, and reliable, with a simplified structure and small size, which meets the needs of future mass deployment of 5G and V2I construction.
The RoboSense RS-LiDAR-Algorithms offer the V2I project with accurate and reliable perception and rich extended functions. Before RoboSense’s establishment in 2014, the founding team of RoboSense, including the founder Dr. Steve Qiu (Chunxin Qiu), has been developing point cloud perception algorithms for more than 7 years. To date, RoboSense has been cultivating in this field for more than 12 years.
The RS-LiDAR-Algorithms maintain high accuracy while ensuring a very high detection rate on road, which greatly improves the LiDAR’s perception ability, and adapt it to a variety of road, weather, and traffic conditions, not only in simple road conditions, such as highways, but also roads with complex challenges, such as intersections with Chinese characters during peak commuting hours and in dense traffic. The RS-LiDAR-Algorithms solve a large number of corner cases and ensures that all kinds of traffic participants are accurately detected even in extreme cases.
“We are very pleased that RoboSense and DT Mobile have reached strategic cooperation on V2I solution for 5G-based smart city development,” RoboSense COO Mark Qiu says. “In addition to increasing investment by combining both parties’ advantages, we will also vigorously carry out the test and verification of the solution to ensure the safety of autonomous driving applications, further advancing the development of the automotive industry with the new technology breakthroughs on the Vehicles-to-Internet.”
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A1 Digital, a subsidiary of A1 Telekom Austria Group reports that, together with its strategic partner BigML, it will make machine learning capacity available free of charge to international research institutions. The limited Machine-Learning-as-a-Service offer applies to all research institutions dealing with the medical, economic and social consequences of the pandemic. “The current exceptional situation confronts all of
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Energy Web (EW) and Vodafone Business, launched a new partnership to help improve the integration of renewable and distributed energy assets within power grids using secure Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity and blockchain technology. Vodafone Business is a global communications company and a specialist in the IoT with more than 100 million connections worldwide. The
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