HFR, a communication equipment company, announced that it has built a private 5G network for the "Smart Agricultural Product Distribution and Storage Technology Development Project" (Lime CSI, Easepark, Ucast, RANET, Yujin Robot, Korea Robotics Convergence Institute) organized by the Korea Communications Agency (KCA).

This project aims to build and demonstrate an Agricultural Products Processing Center (APC) that enables distributed operations for multi-variety crops by developing automatic sorting and packaging management technologies for agricultural products using robots, sensing, autonomous driving, and 5G. 

The first phase is to develop automatic agricultural product sorting and packaging management technology for smart APCs from 2022 to 2023, and to develop optimization and control technology for the operating environment in APCs using 5G technology.

The second phase will promote modularization and commercialization of unit technologies and products through system integration verification and demonstration, technology advancement and stabilization from 2024 to 2026.

In this project, HFR built a private 5G network solution based on its own technology in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do, and completed performance test certification by an accredited testing laboratory in October.

 A KCA official said, "By utilizing the private 5G network built in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do to automate facilities and control robots, we will derive analysis verification and improvement measures, and promote verification and development support for 5G convergence services, which will be used in the future in the fields of smart manufacturing and concentrated food."

"HFR emphasized that private 5G networks are the key to building communication infrastructure in the domestic industrial ecosystem as part of the government's policy, and HFR hopes that the private 5G built in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do will serve as a base for the Honam region and expand to many businesses in the future through the supply of high-quality private 5G networks as a digital innovation (DX) partner for SMEs and public institutions," said Cho Bum-geun, head of HFR.