The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon launched the Scottish Government’s 5G Digital Strategy on Monday 26 August at the James Watt School of Engineering.

Professor Muhammad Imran (currently Vice Dean of UESTC) and his team have been developing 5G technologies to connect people and machines in a way often referred to as the ‘Internet of Things’. A number of academics, researchers and PhD students met with the First Minister and showed several demonstrations highlighting the positive impact 5G could have on Scotland.

FM Scotland's 5G Digital Strategy launch

A real-time demo on 5G pop-up networks ingeniously developed by the communications group was presented. The First Minister was able to see how a network facility can be quickly commissioned in places and times of emergent demand, using a small-form factor which can be mounted on a drone or carried in a briefcase and transported to the target area to bring temporary relief to the network. In future, such a technology will enable coverage of a sporting event in remote locations of Scotland, provide popup health clinics to rural communities and could even be used if a natural disaster were to occur in which critical communication infrastructure was destroyed.

The First Minister also learned how UofG researchers have found a more environmentally-friendly method of running 5G networks. The 5G team’s project demonstrates how a user can “wake-up” a sleeping base station and provide connectivity, rather than having base stations “always on”. Self-learning algorithms developed by Team UofG will reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions of 5G networks because base stations can toggle between sleep and active modes, this has potential to save up to 20% of energy typically used for mobile networks.

Finally, the First Minister viewed the excellent work the 5G team have done to develop Remote Health Monitoring. 5G technology underpins new approaches to monitoring patient health. Professor Imran’s team has designed a low-cost, non-invasive working prototype that measures blood glucose level and transfers data to the cloud via mobile phone where data-driven models can help predict the precise dose of insulin to take.

The First Minister was very impressed with the hard-work carried out by the 5G team and she also spent some time getting to know the researchers, academics and students involved in the projects.

Professor Chris Pearce, Dean of Research in the College of Science & Engineering at the University of Glasgow, said,

“5G is a next-generation network technology which is faster, has the potential to revolutionise digital communications and create real social impact in Scotland – from public health to the environment.

“Our researchers, led by Professor Muhammad Imran at the University of Glasgow, are developing 5G technologies to facilitate remote health monitoring without invasive measurements and without the need for wearable sensors. They are also working to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions of cellular networks and are developing low-cost pop-up networks. These can be deployed quickly and efficiently during large sporting events or disaster scenarios to bring temporary connectivity to the area, strengthening Scotland’s resilience capacity.

“The University of Glasgow has been working with academic partners, including the University of Strathclyde, and Scottish Futures Trust on 5G and we are delighted that the Scottish Government’s 5G Strategy recognises the importance this technology will have in creating services and applications that will benefit our NHS, industry and people right across Scotland.”

First published: 26 August 2019

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