The World’s First 5G Smart Town Cleans Rivers with Unmanned Boat

Under the theme of “Smart, connectivity, openness and cooperation: jointly build a community of shared future in cyberspace,” the 6th World Internet Conference (WIC) was held from Oct. 20 to 22 in Wuzhen, east China’s Zhejiang Province. 

This year’s conference selected more than 60 Internet technology projects from 40 companies to participate in the smart city upgrade, making Wuzhen the world’s first 5G smart town.

A water quality monitoring unmanned surface vehicle (yellow) from OceanAlpha, the largest unmanned surface vehicle company in China, supported by 5G and autopilot technologies, was in service beside the Wuzhen Grand Theater. The USV built a mobile water quality monitoring platform for the main river channels in Wuzhen to create a smart water environment brain. Through 24-hour on-line monitoring of water quality and timed river patrols, the application of 5G technology on unmanned surface vehicle helps city managers effectively manage complex and interlaced watercourses to protect Wuzhen’s most unique and well-known water scenery.

The 5G remote-controlled driving technology and the 5G micro-bus have also made their debut at the event. From the town to the venue, participants can book the 5G micro-bus to get the first-hand experience of 5G auto-driving technology.

A passenger sitting in an auto-driving bus in Wuzhen

In addition, some communities in Wuzhen have begun to deploy smart sorting trash cans, smart face recognition access control systems, smart home appliances based on the Internet of Things, and 5G HD set-top boxes. Intelligent unmanned containers, AR remote fitting, face recognition advertising machines, and big data-based food traceability systems based on object image recognition technology were also launched at this conference.

A guest tries virtual clothes via an AR and 5G-powered device at a store