Autonomous robots are essential for many 5G vertical sectors and has the significance in automated mobility, Industry 4.0 and healthcare. 5G, on the other hand, has the great potential to enhance robot autonomy. It is truly enabling with respect to the shift of knowledge and learning from the individual to collective that robot autonomy enhancement needs. To use the potential allowing third parties to develop autonomous robotic applications across vertical sectors, it is important and urgently needed to further develop and standardise experimentation facilities.

5G-ERA developed an enhanced 5G experimentation facility enabling third-party users, such as SMEs and service providers, to test robotic applications on integrated, open 5G platforms across multiple domains. Using existing 5G testbeds, the project validated use cases tailored to robotics. It addressed the need for robotic autonomy by offloading learning processes to the cloud via 5G, overcoming computing, safety, and data bias limitations. Following a PDCA (plan-do-check-act) model, robots act in the real world while planning and learning virtually. A continuously updated digital twin enables real-time monitoring, decision support, and optimisation of robotic operations through cloud-based collective intelligence.