Using a haptic Teslasuit and Vodafone 5G, Wasps Rugby player Juan de Jongh feels the impact of a tackle made 100 miles away by team mate Will Rowlands.
High-tech may allow rugby players of the future to train with an artificially intelligent coach.
New Zealand Herald business reporter Chris Keall travelled to Germany and Italy, where Vodafone already has 5G rollouts underway. Here's his sneak preview of some of the exciting 5G-enabled developments that could be heading our way.
It may be too late for this World Cup, but for future rugby tests the All Blacks could get help in practicing their tackling techniques from a new quarter - the high-tech world of 5G.
Vodafone, who is bringing the fifth generation mobile network technology to New Zealand in December, has been experimenting in the UK with smart tackle bags that are equipped with an accelerometer able to measure the force, direction and exact position of a tackle.
By wearing a 5G-enabled full-body suit players can feel the impact of a tackle made 160m away by a teammate meaning the pair could train together in real-time despite the physical distance between them.
The suit was demonstrated in the UK recently by Wasps rugby players, Juan de Jongh (who was tackled while wearing the suit) and teammate Will Rowlands.
The body suit - known as a Teslasuit - gives the wearer the ability to feel temperature, pressure and touch and can relay information about performance and vitals like heartbeat in real-time to a human or AI (artificial intelligence) coach who can then offer instant feedback.
The smart tackle bags - which, who knows, could help eliminate red and yellow card inducing high tackles which have bedeviled many games at the World Cup in Japan - is one of a number of 'smarts' currently being trialled by Vodafone and its university and industry partners in Germany, Italy and other European countries where 5G has already been rolled out.
Virtual connection, real impact: a special haptic suit meant Wasps centre Juan de Jongh could feel the impact of a tackle made by a teammate in another city. Photo/Supplied
One, a trial with toy diggers, shows how 5G could be used to control real diggers on a construction site. At Vodafone's 5G lab in Dusseldorf toy diggers are controlled by secure, stable, real-time two-way connections meaning they can be controlled from afar - and scientists believe the same could hold true for real-life, full-sized diggers.
The concept is also being used for a trial of remote-controlled delivery robots in Milan. In another trial advanced human-robotics-interaction (HRI) models have been created in work with Swedish robotics and heavy industry company ABB. The models help maximise production line efficiency in factories and support instant sensors that can help avoid accidental collisions between people – and sometimes sharp-edged robots.
Remote control of serious toys. Photo/supplied
Still on the production line, a German electric vehicle maker, eGO, has created a wire-free assembly line with production co-ordinated and tracked via a 5G network. The high-tech setup helped eGO to get a plant up and running in May for just (euros) 35 million, an amount that is a fraction of the cost of a traditional automobile factory.
And 5G has a part to play in how fans attending matches in the German Football League get to view key stats in real-time through augmented reality (AR). Although AR is not new, 5G has the capacity to deliver data chunks with no buffering problems.
The league has been working with Vodafone to create an AR app being piloted this season. Fans in a stadium can see in real-time stats that are usually only available after half time, or at the end of the game.
