Sähkö-Jokinen is involved in the EU-funded RESPONSE project. The aim of the large-scale project is to create an energy-positive district in Turku Student Village. A five-year EU project will develop smart and carbon-neutral solutions for energy production, building services and mobility.
Sähkö-Jokinen brings its own innovative know-how to this vast entity by designing a 5G smart pole. In addition to the 5G-hub, the lighting pole is a platform for other services and urban technology needs. Sähkö-Jokinen’s 5G smart pole may also be integrated with e.g. weather and air quality sensors, cameras, screens, EV- charger and other devices.
- We are very happy to be involved in developing a new and advanced infrastructure for the urban environment, which includes our innovative lighting poles as part of the whole. The poles will serve as a basis for new data collection systems and equipment. Together with ELISA’s 5G antennas it will create a comprehensive and fast 5G network. Elisa’s 5G network will be used, for example, as a platform for self-driving robot cars and drones, as the 5G connection enables delayless and fast data transfer, says Ville Nieminen, Sales Manager of Sähkö-Jokinen Oy.
The design and development of the poles has begun and the poles of the pilot site will be installed in Turku in 2022-23. Investments will be made in the appearance and functionality of the column, and the goal is to develop a stylish solution that fits well into the cityscape together with other actors in the project, such as VTT, Turku-Energia and the City of Turku, as well as TYS. Smart poles will become significantly more common in the future with the growing use of IoT devises and their needs. Indeed, smart poles may be one of our best export products in the future.
One of the most interesting possibilities of using the Internet of Things (IoT) is the self-driving car. In order for a driverless car to be able to move safely on public roads, a large number of different IoT devices are required. Other road users and road conditions are detected by cameras, radars, sensors and microphones installed in the car. The devices collect a huge amount of data, which is then used to steer the car. The goal of robotic cars is to reduce traffic accidents and make movement effortless. The smart pole network already required by robotic cars alone will be large in the future and will also represent great commercial potential.
RESPONSE is a Europe-wide project involving two lighthouse cities (Dijon and Turku) and also eight partner cities. The Turku region is managed by the City of Turku, and there are also 18 partners involved. There are several city-related companies (Turku Energia, Turku City Data, Turku Student Village Foundation), research institutes and universities (VTT, University of Turku, Turku University of Applied Sciences and the Finnish Meteorological Institute) and pioneers of innovative technologies in Finland (Solar Finland, Oilon, Sähkö-Jokinen, HögforsGST, Elisa, ELCON Solutions, HR-Ikkunat Ruhkala) and abroad (eGain, FerroAmp and SunAmp).