With all the attention that HUAWEI is getting these past few weeks for all the wrong reasons, they are still positive. They are still Malaysia’s biggest hope to our progression toward 5G, they have collaborated with Singapore to bring more contents to their own platform, and they are still innovating on their smartphones. Also, they are still the largest network infrastructure provider in this part of the world.
Driverless cars, on the other hand, is not something that is quite prevalent here. In South East Asia at least, the most we can get is assisted braking. Even radar guided cruise control over here is not something that is readily available. To hear about a driverless car in this neck of the woods is news.
Sadly, we are not getting that technology in Malaysia. The system is placed in Thailand first. It is not a Tesla either. It is completely autonomous with no human input controls within the vehicle at least.
It is not made for commercial purposes either, so you cannot even buy it even if you have millions in the bank. Maybe you can, but that is not the point. The new autonomous vehicle is Thailand’s next step in transforming the nation into a digital one.
Technically the vehicle in question looks nothing more than a metal box on four wheels. That is because, that is all it is – a delivery vehicle to revolutionise the Thailand healthcare industry. No, it is not made to transport human beings as ambulances.
They are mostly made to transport medical equipment, or medical supplies either within a hospital compound or from one hospital in town to the other. Which also means that this will also be on the road. There is a problem to all these autonomous vehicles however – how are they driven?
Usually an autonomous vehicle gathers data through various cameras and sensors placed around its body panels. These data are stitched through its ‘brains’ or CPU and uploaded to the cloud for further analysis to create detailed information of the road it sees, and the objects around it. The computer within the vehicle will determine how fast it should be going, where it should be heading, and where to place itself to avoid collisions, and find the fastest route to its destination. This also means a more reliable delivery service. Important when it comes to life and death.
There is a crucial component in autonomous vehicle networks though – data. You cannot just collect endless amounts of data and not offload it and back it up somewhere else. You need to share the data, back it up, and retrieve older data for the machine to understand situations better and make decisions based on every other data. For that, you need a stable and fast internet connection. For that you can look at 5G.
In this case, HUAWEI is that big partner that brings on the 5G capabilities required for Thailand’s revolutionary delivery vehicle service for the medical field. Technically that is it, HUAWEI empowering the healthcare segment of Thailand through their 5G. There is a little more than that though.
By effectively transforming the healthcare environment with 5G infrastructures also propels Thailand at the forefront of 5G readiness. While Malaysia is aiming to get 5G to hit the streets as soon as the end of 2020, it seems that Thailand has leaped forward and start taking advantage of 5G in improving their healthcare capacity and capabilities. This is a start to a much bigger 5G future.
What do you think of Malaysia’s progress toward 5G? Which industry do you think should get 5G capabilities first? Let us know in the comments!