With Games near, high-tech lovers are big winners
A 5G-enabled, driverless minibus outfitted as a mobile retail store caught the attention recently of dozens of people in Beijing.
Simply by waving their hands, buyers in the crowd at Shougang Industrial Park could summon the unmanned minibus to stop near them. Shoppers could push a virtual button on the vehicle’s screen to buy more than 20 items such as water or souvenirs from the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
When the minibus is not around, buyers can place an order on their smartphones. The vehicle then drives itself to them.
Behind this futuristic mobile retail outlet is a 5G-enabled, intelligent vehicle networking system deployed in the industrial park where several events of the Winter Olympics will take place.
The system was developed by China Unicom, the official telecommunications service provider for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. It is just one of the 5G-enabled, cutting-edge applications that are being tested as the sports event approaches.
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics marked its 100-day countdown last month. The organizing committee for the Games and companies involved are working overtime to ensure that everything is ready for the event to be a smart sports gathering relying on cuttingedge communications technologies.
The 5G-enabled, intelligent vehicle networking system covers 1 million square meters of Shougang Industrial Park, said Liu Qi, a senior technical expert at China Unicom’s smart city research institute.
Thanks to integration of 5G technologies and the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, the unmanned vehicles are able to achieve continuous, high-precision positioning within 10 centimeters.
Liu said the intelligent vehicle networking system can support four types of unmanned vehicles and can demonstrate 10 types of potential uses, such as guiding an unmanned ferry or an unmanned delivery vehicle in complex environments where people and vehicles are mixed.
It is expected to bring the first systematic application of Level 4 intelligent vehicle networking business to an Olympic scenario, China Unicom said. That means the vehicle can drive itself in most conditions without a human driver.
Visitors to the Winter Olympics will also be able to use digital renminbi, or e-CNY, backed by the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, to buy items.
Li Lihui, former president of Bank of China and head of the blockchain research working group at the National Internet Finance Association of China, said earlier that the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing are likely to prove to be a breakout phase for digital renminbi.
Some major cities, such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, are expected to be ready for extensive use of digital renminbi payments during the Games which will be held from Feb 4 to 20, Li said.
Already at Shougang Industrial Park, people can use devices such as gloves embedded with a digital renminbi wallet module to buy products from vending machines. People can complete payments simply by moving their gloved hand near a pay zone on the vending machine. The gloves are perfect for the Winter Olympic Games because they enable people to buy things without removing their gloves in frigid temperatures.