How to make disaster relief safer and more sustainable in the metaverse through autonomous operations

Commercial context

Telecommunications networks are among the most vital tools at humanity’s disposal when it comes to disaster relief. They do however depend largely on infrastructure – such as cell towers, internet connectivity and power lines – which is itself subject to physical destruction or interruption. There are also considerable challenges here when it comes to energy efficiency – in theory massive and dedicated networks could be deployed to ensure stable, real-time responsiveness under disaster conditions, but the barriers in terms of sustainability, operational efficiency and commercial viability would be insurmountable.

Today’s networks are simply too static to comfortably meet the needs for agility, resilience, and sustainability which unexpected disasters force us to confront. There is therefore an urgent need to improve digital support of disaster relief efforts – which can quickly and reliably connect first responders to local and global resources, and each other, while minimizing the excess energy consumption which can itself contribute to man-made climate catastrophe.

The solution

The Autonomous Networks Hyperloops Phase IV Catalyst has shown how – by combining autonomous network operations with AI, digital twin technology, 5G MEC, intent-based frameworks, and AR/VR – CSPs can enable seamless experiential capabilities to the emergency services through a single interface. This innovative combination gives rise to what can be called virtual command centers-as-a-service or ‘VCCaaS’ – whereby digital twins are used to map physical contexts such as buildings or landscapes for modelling. Then real-time AI analytics can build and run the necessary prediction engines to understand and anticipate behaviors, minimizing the need for human intervention while optimizing business processes.

Metaverse visualizers can then allow real operating actions in safe mode based on business, operations, and services intents, and can also be used to train teams to improve handling skills and improve their processes. The AI layer provides not only the analysis needed of the different digital twin domains, but also decision-making to align operations via AIOps. This combination of technologies enables greatly reduced energy consumption, improved network operational efficiency, and increases the speed of disaster response while also reducing risk.

Applications and wider value

While this phase of the Catalyst focused mainly on disaster relief, the solution has far broader application potential – for instance in smart manufacturing, connected driving, intelligent healthcare and many broader smart city scenarios. What this project achieves is proof of concept for the VCCaaS model – whereby CSPs can play a more active role in helping improve efficiency and reliability in complex operations which rely on sophisticated connectivity but must make safety and sustainability primary concerns in design and management of their virtual command centers. Examples include:

1. Datacenter operation command centers (DCOCC), which are used to monitor and manage data center assets from the hardware layer up to the application layer, including the networks interconnecting them
2. Mission-critical industry command centers (MCICC) for remote operation in hazardous settings including nuclear plants, mines, gas pipelines and oil refineries, which require complex combinations of sophisticated devices for remote monitoring and control such as robots and advanced cameras
3. Disaster handling virtual command centers (DHVCC) for central management of critical infrastructure and resources such as networks, power grids, transport and healthcare to improve situational awareness and decision-making during emergencies

This VCCaaS model was demonstrated at DTW Copenhagen 2023, where Catalyst members were urged to investigate ‘predictive analysis from digital twin with AI and intent for autonomous networks for the next phase of the project.

The essence of the project – which benefited from collaboration with BeyondNow, Chunghwa Telecom, Futurewei, Infosim, TIM, UBiqube and Verizon – is summarized by VP Smart Territories at Orange Christian Maitre, and Project Lead Takayuki Nakamura, Manager at NTT Group: “We focus here on natural risk mitigation, energy optimization and automation. Due to the spread of climate change in parallel with the diversification needs of energy sources, such as nuclear power plants, natural disaster risk mitigation is one of the critical issues which multiple organizations face currently in addition to individual ESG objectives or SDGs as corporate citizens. To provide truly safe and stable energy sources through real-time prediction, even in the circumstances of natural disasters, massive and dedicated networks could be deployed. But sustainability and efficiency then becomes the major challenge, so there is a huge need to define a more flexible and dynamic solution.”