UC12 - City Parks in Metaverse
This use case develops around the social metaverse concept, centered on the idea of creating a virtual world where people can interact with each other, form social connections, and participate in a variety of activities. It will take place in the Borgo Medievale, one of the main attractions of the Valentino Park of Turin, reproducing a village of ancient Piedmont. During its closure for renovation from 2024 to 2026, the use case intends to offer, as an alternative to the tourists arriving at the gate of the Borgo, a virtual visit enriched with a layer for gaming along with the possibility for multiple persons to join the visit with their avatars.
Trial
The trial aimed to test a digital game app that educates players about heritage sites and evaluates the capacity of the public 5G network to support it. The trial took place in Turin (Parco del Valentino and the Talent Garden of Fondazione Agnelli) on 14-15 November 2024, with the involvement of over 130 participants: 117 students aged 15-17 (including one with reduced mobility) and 17 teachers. The AR part of the game in the park included six minigames, with location-based content dynamically downloaded at specific areas. For the VR part, a multiplayer streaming game supporting four players simultaneously was conducted. Each VR headset was connected to the commercial network via Wi-Fi through a 5G CPE. All participants filled up an evaluation questionnaire (KVIs) at the end of the experience.
The partners contributing to the trial were CROSEU (AR development), TIM (VR development and network operator) COTO (logistics and data), CNIT (sensors) with LINKS Foundation, Tiny Bull Studio, and IUSTO as subcontractors. Everything went smoothly in the five phases of the experience (AR park walk, VR combat, quiz on the historical cultural aspects of the visit, visit of the medieval fortress in 3D, KVI questionnaire filling). As for the KPIs, values were measured in both the park and the auditorium, and no problems were experienced with the 5G signal.
The trial demonstrated the feasibility of the innovative concept. The analysis of KPIs during the trial showed that the most resource-intensive phase on the 5G network was the VR segment, during which four players simultaneously battled the “boss.” In contrast, the pre-loaded AR app required significantly less network capacity.
To ensure the trial ran smoothly and was not hindered by network capacity limitations, the number of simultaneous players in the VR phase was restricted to four. Extrapolating the measured KPIs from the experience indicates that the public 5G network would not have been capable of sustaining two groups of four players simultaneously—a realistic scenario for a commercial application. The primary issue was the network’s limitation in handling such high downstream traffic. The team is currently analyzing how the use case can be enhanced in the future with a primary edutainment purpose.
A video of the trial is available here.