Eden Universe

• Government funding: £1,662,881
• Total project value: £ 3,338,333
• Location: South West, South Cornwall
• Project Finished: 1st April 2022

Featured image copywright of Hufton & Crow

The Eden Project in Cornwall will explore how 5G and 360 degree video cameras can enhance the visitor experience. Virtual visitors who are unable to visit the Eden site will be able to experience the exhibits and talks from their home, care home, school or other locations via a desktop, mobile or virtual reality device and be taken on a real-time VR tour.

The local 5G infrastructure will also be used to provide real-time data on core services such as energy and water management. The data will be fed into Eden’s site management systems to ensure its rich collection of plant life remains in good condition.

Dan James, the Eden Project’s Development Director, said: “The Eden Project is delighted to have secured support from 5G Create. Eden is a visually rich and wonderful place to be, so having this new technology on our Cornwall site and the opportunity to create new digital content with our project partners aql, Meta and Marshmallow Laser Feast is very exciting.

“We are looking forward to testing just how 5G can help support our educational, arts and community programmes and provide new and exciting reasons for people to keep visiting us in person or virtually. The data collected through the 5G network will also help us manage the site and improve the visitor experience and our environmental performance.”

More about the Eden Universe Project

Eden Universe 5G Testbed will establish a 5G evolving Non-Standalone mobile network with 360º video cameras across the Eden Project, Cornwall as a testbed for innovative solutions that enhance the visitor experience.   
 
The testbed will use this 5G network, integrated with existing data management systems, to enable stakeholders to deploy and assess virtual & augmented reality-based visitor enhancement solutions that cannot be delivered via existing networks. 
 
"Virtual visitors" who are unable to visit the Eden site will be able to experience the exhibits and talks from their home, school or other locations. End users can either view from a desktop, mobile or virtual reality device and be taken on a real-time VR tour.  This real-time immersive content will be overlaid onto streamed (in real-time) footage of Eden.  
 
With VR visitors can be taken down into the soil to view the microbial activity and, using AR, see interpretational overlays to understand more about existing interactive exhibits such as "infinity blue" - A 9m sculpture representing bacteria.  
 
These experiences will be consumed on smart phones, headsets and screens in the locale, and allow remote experience of the Eden Project (for leisure, therapeutic or educational reasons) for those unable to visit physically. The techniques developed will create new engagement opportunities for UK businesses at home and abroad and encourage inward investment).  The local 5G infrastructure will also be used to improve the facilities management of the Eden Project by integrating onsite sensor deployments to monitor local conditions and control visitor navigation with IoT solutions.   
 
By accelerating and demonstrating the deployment of experiences that can only be delivered by 5G networks the project will show how to create competitive advantage for experience-based UK companies in a tough global market. 

Video showing how technology is being used to enhance learning experiences within the Eden Project

Video showing how technology is being used to enhance Visitor experiences within the Eden Project