Samsung to Build Private 5G Commercial Network for Cloud-Based Robots

Samsung has built the first private 5G commercial network for cloud-based autonomous robots. The Korean giant have collaborated with NAVER Cloud on Thursday to work on South Korea’s first private 5G network. Deployed at NAVER’s new second headquarters, Samsung’s network solution will support NAVER’s private 5G commercial service to power cloud-based autonomous mobile robots this month. The new service would allow autonomous robots to travel throughout NAVER’s headquarters in Seoul, assisting with package delivery, coffee delivery, and lunch box delivery to staff.

Quicker connectivity on smartphones has largely been used to stream video and surf social media, but Samsung has come up with a new use case. The headquarters, simply dubbed 1784, will begin by employing 40 robots that will move across three floors. By the end of the year, the idea is to have “hundreds of robots moving over the entire 36-floor skyscraper.”

All of the robots are connected to a cloud server that operates as a shared brain, offloading much of the required computations off the individual robots. According to Samsung’s press release, the 5G network will be the neural network that connects the robots to their cloud, enabling “support for tens of thousands of robots in real-time.”

The network uses Samsung Compact Core and 5G radios that support the 4.7GHz and 28GHz spectrums that the Korean government has designated for private networks. The improved uplink allocation function of the private 5G radios triple the capability of other commercial 5G radios.

Yong Chang, VP of Global Sales and Marketing for Samsung Electronics’ Networks Business, stated that the business will continue to collaborate with public institutions to implement the service in various use cases such as transit systems, hospitals, and schools.