Tay Cities Deal Tay5G – 12 successful projects delivering cross-sector collaboration and innovation
All projects are complete with processes and services climbing up technology readiness levels towards commercially ready. Thanks are due to the UK and Scottish Governments, Tay Cities Deal, the Scotland 5G Centre, Folk Consulting and all the delivery partners from the business and academic sectors. The £2m programme is led and managed by Dundee City Council City Development and has delivered outcomes across Tay Cities Region including leverage of £1.7m and support for over 70 SMEs. Find out more below about the projects delivered:
- drones and defence
- disaster relief
- digital forensic science
- offshore services
- virtual production
- broadcasting
- immersive live events
- sustainable fashion
- agritech
- agri-robotics
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eSports
5G and the diverse technologies that 5G supports are relevant to virtually every sector from entertainment to manufacturing, healthcare to construction, fashion to automated transport. It is especially great for enabling advanced communications, tools and experiences like immersive (VR, AR and XR), virtual production, automation and the Internet of Things that is a key tool for Smart Cities, places, buildings and business, industrial and welfare operations.
- Tay5G - Defence & Civil Search & Rescue
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5G takes to the skies - drones project to transform defence and civil search and rescue
JET Connectivity and Abertay University have demonstrated how flying 5G drones can create a moving “connectivity bubble”, bringing mobile coverage to wherever it is needed including for defence and civil rescue missions. JET Connectivity specialises in rapidly deployable 5G networks, bringing mobile coverage to remote areas and challenging environments for emergency response, search and rescue, and offshore operations. By taking the network into the air, the project explores how teams could stay connected in remote locations and challenging conditions, supporting communication and information sharing during critical operations. The approach could open up new possibilities for defence and civil search and rescue, helping responders coordinate missions where existing coverage is limited or unavailable.
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- Tay5G - Digital Forensic Science
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Immersive Forensics Unveiled: Tay5G and CoSTAR Realtime Lab Demonstrate 5G Innovation
The project was led by the University of Dundee’s Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science in collaboration with Abertay University, and supported by advanced communications consultant Jack Waland of Folk Consulting. The team's research explored how detailed digital representations of crime scenes could be made accessible in immersive virtual environments. This helps exploration by stakeholders such as legal advisers and juries and in hazardous environments. The project culminated in a final demonstration at the CoSTAR Realtime Lab, showcasing how 5G and virtual reality could change the way crime scenes are captured, shared and examined. Combining advanced connectivity with the ability to examine a scene remotely helps specialists collaborate without being physically present, preserve spatial context and support forensic training. The demonstration highlighted the potential for these technologies to strengthen forensic practice and opened up opportunities for further research and development.
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More on this coming soon.
- Tay5G - Offshore Services
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5G buoys and launch base at Dundee Harbour for offshore services and defence
A floating 5G base station was tested at Dundee Port as part of the Tay Cities Region Deal Tay5G programme. The project was led by Jet Connectivity and brought together Abertay University, the Scotland 5G Centre, the Port of Dundee and Dundee City Council. It offered transformative communications and technology for the North Sea and beyond for support against potential ‘hostile’ attacks on the UK energy network and a cost-effective and agile tool for offshore servicing such as wind pylons.
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- Tay5G - Immersive Live Events
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Breaking Boundaries: 5G and the Next Generation of Live Experiences
The project was led by AIX Live, an immersive entertainment company developing a platform that brings audiences in different venues together for shared, interactive live experiences. AIX worked with Abertay University’s CoSTAR Realtime Lab to explore how 5G could overcome delays and keep content and audience interaction synchronised across locations. Delivery included an interactive music quiz linking Dundee and Salford, followed by a four-city watch party for the Scotland–Wales Six Nations match, connecting audiences in Dundee, Salford, Cardiff and Belfast. Combining immersive screens, real-time graphics and games through the AIX app, the trials demonstrated a new way to experience live events together across distances and helped advance AIX Live’s ambitions for national and international distribution.
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- Tay5G - Smart Cities & IoT
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Smart Sensors, Smarter Bridge: Tay5G in Action
The project was led by Digiflec, a Fife based company that specialises in smart sensing, digital twins and infrastructure monitoring that helps organisations turn real-time data into better decisions about transport, safety and maintenance. The projec included extensive work with the Tay Road Bridge team. With around 27,000 vehicles crossing the Tay Road Bridge every day, understanding how it is used is vital to keeping this key regional link running efficiently. Supported by the Tay5G Challenge Fund, Digiflec introduced smart 3D sensors to provide real-time insights into traffic flow and vehicle types, replacing the need to wait months for manually collected data. Installed without digging into the road surface, the technology helps the bridge team plan maintenance, target investment and respond more quickly to changing conditions—demonstrating how digital innovation can improve the management of essential infrastructure.
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- Tay5G Broadcasting
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Neutral Wireless & QTV - Successful Tay5G Broadcasting Trials
Live football provided the testing ground for Tay5G Broadcast, led by award-winning Scottish 5G technology company Neutral Wireless alongside outside broadcast and remote production specialist QTV. For th final test, the partners deployed a pop-up private 5G network at Dundee FC’s Dens Park, enabling wireless cameras to transmit high-definition match footage while supporting camera control, production team communications and video feeds back to camera operators. Control was demonstrated both at the stadium and remotely from QTV’s production centre, showing how one network could handle the two-way communication essential to live broadcasting. The successful trials highlighted the potential for more flexible camera positions, reduced reliance on cabling and new approaches to remote production for sport and other live events.Neutral Wirelessis a Scottish multi-award winning 5G radio/telecommunications company. They delivered the project alongside outside broadcast and remote production partner, QTV who also hold the contract with the Scottish Premiership to run centralised VAR (virtual assistant referee) systems.
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- Tay5G Sustainable Fashion
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5G and design tech for sustainable fashion
Scotland Re:Design's ‘Hidden Floors’ project brought fashion, textiles and digital innovation together to explore how 5G could support a more sustainable and connected industry. Scotland Re:Design supports and showcases Scotland’s fashion and textile talent, connecting designers and businesses with audiences, industry opportunities and new ways of working. Supported by the Tay5G Challenge Fund 1, it introduced Tay Cities region designers and businesses to opportunities for remote collaboration, immersive showcasing and richer online experiences. Through the Scottish Fashion Festival and a 5G-enabled virtual exhibition, the project explored how collections could reach audiences beyond the physical venue, while demonstrating the potential for designers to share ideas and work together in real time without travelling. It highlighted how advanced connectivity could help fashion and textile businesses develop new creative approaches, extend their reach and explore more sustainable ways of working.
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- Tay5G Virtual Production
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5G virtual production breakthrough for UK movie industry as real-time scenes shot 280 miles apart
Actors in Dundee and Manchester performed together in real time, despite being 280 miles apart, in a pioneering Tay5G virtual production trial led by Abertay University. Using 5G connectivity, large LED screens and a shared digital backdrop, the team filmed a science-fiction test sequence in which the actors appeared to occupy the same scene. Director Professor Peter Richardson of Royal Holloway, University of London, directed both performers from Manchester while viewing live camera feeds from the two studios. Delivered with partners including VSS, Space Digital, StoryFutures, InGAME, AWTG and The Scotland 5G Centre, the project demonstrated the potential for more flexible filmmaking, remote collaboration and pop-up virtual production studios, opening up opportunities to reduce travel and widen access to specialist production facilities.
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- Tay5G eSports
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Game-Changing Esports Event to Spark Revolution of Sports Spectating In Scotland as Gifted Gamers Competed in Futuristic 5G Environment
Competitive gaming met next-generation connectivity at the Scottish Esports League 4 grand finals, led by Esports Scotland’s James Hood and developed with partners including esports venue company Northern Lights Arena Europe (NLAE). Supported by Tay5G, the four-day event at Dundee Contemporary Arts in November 2021 became the first use of Dundee City Council’s private 5G testbed, enabling gaming and live broadcasting to audiences on Twitch. Players competed across five major titles for an £11,000 prize pool, while a dedicated skills showcase introduced visitors to careers and education opportunities across gaming and esports. The event demonstrated how 5G could support competitive gaming, mobile participation and live streaming, strengthening Dundee’s profile as a centre for esports and digital innovation.
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- Tay5G Agritech
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5G-Enabled testing at James Hutton innovation hubs for more efficient crop monitoring and management
The project revolved around two themes at Hutton. The first, looking at automating irrigation for efficient water use, which brings together an interconnected network of sensors which monitor conditions in the crop and responds real-time to control irrigation water supply. This is based on polytunnel fruit production for the use case demonstration, but is also relevant to vegetable and potato crops. The second theme is on retrofitting autosteer and telemetry to older equipment to provide sub-centimetre steering accuracy and real time data from the tractor over a 5G data connection.
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- Tay5G - Agri-Robotics
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SPOT, the robot dog, demonstrates its skills at The James Hutton Institute
Robotic farming trials at the James Hutton Institute attracted the attention of BBC Scotland’s Landward, demonstrating how 5G can support real-time field data collection, remote control and more precise agricultural operations. The Institute is a leading research organisation specialising in crops, soils, land and the environment, with the Tay5G project led by its commercial arm, James Hutton Ltd, now James Hutton Scientific Services. Collaborators included Scottish precision farming company Soil Essentials and the National Robotarium, a robotics and artificial intelligence centre based at Heriot-Watt University in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, the Scotland 5G Centre and Jack Waland of Folk Consulting. Trials tested robots for crop imaging, autonomous ploughing and field monitoring, while related work with mobile connectivity specialist Freshwave and robot manufacturer Boston Dynamics explored portable private 5G networks for agricultural robotics. The Scotland 5G Centre and Folk Consulting engineered the connectivity and equipment needed for responsive control and rapid data streaming, highlighting the potential to improve farming efficiency and support more detailed crop research.
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- Tay5G - Disaster Relief & Recovery
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Pop-Up 5G: Connecting Communities in a Crisis
JET Connectivity has developed 5G radio and user equipment designed for rural and hard-to-reach areas, capable of quickly deploying 5G networks powered by solar, hydrogen, or batteries. With experience in delivering 5G for search and rescue and offshore operations, JET aims to provide a pop-up mobile connectivity solution for emergency resilience across the Tay area. This project will explore meshing connectivity between multiple hardware systems, creating a unified network across pop-up sites. Additionally, JET will explore service slicing to prioritise support for emergency responders and the local community. Inspired by the widespread connectivity issues caused by Storm Arwen in 2021, this solution seeks to ensure mobile and broadband access in remote areas without requiring specialist engineers, due to the user friendly approach to the solution and training materials provided during the project.
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- Tay5G Challenge Fund 2 - up to £600,000 - Funding competition launched for innovative solutions using 5G
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- Tay5G Challenge Fund Announces Winners for Promising Innovations in Scotland
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The winners of Challenge Fund 1 are Digiflec, Neutral Wireless working with QTV, James Hutton Ltd and Scotland Re:Design.
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