The SparkLink Alliance Industry Summit 2022 of "New Technology · New Industry", a forum of China Radio Conference 2022, was held in Shenzhen on Nov. 4. Leaders from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Industry and Information Technology Bureau (IITB) of Shenzhen Municipal, leaders from partner standards and industry organization of the SparkLink Alliance, board members of the SparkLink Alliance and members of the SparkLink Alliance attended the meeting.
“I am glad to see that the SparkLink Alliance seize the opportunity and build technology standards and industrial ecology of the next generation wireless short-distance communications.” said Mr. Xiao Han, director-general of the Department of Standard Innovation and Management of SAMR, via video speech. He recommended the SparkLink Alliance shall leverage interaction between standardization and technological innovation in the future, and jointly promote technical R&D, standardization and industrialization. Furthermore, the SparkLink Alliance shall work towards being a worldwide standard brand by means of innovative standardization mechanism aligning with well-known standard bodies, and wide participation of domestic and global organizations and specialists.
Mr. Zhao Zheng, deputy director of the Radio Administration of the MIIT, also delivered a video speech. The ITU highlights importance of the standardization of wireless short-range technologies, he said. In recent years, the MIIT has issued series of spectrum related regulation documents, which lay a solid foundation for regulating and guiding industrial development. Besides congratulation to all achievements, Mr. Zhao suggested that the SparkLink Alliance would evolve the SparkLink technology continuously through collaboration, innovation and eco-system building, and make full usage of domestic and foreign spectrum resources with focus on the killer business scenarios.
Mr. Zhang Wenping, director of the Information Infrastructure Department of IITB of Shenzhen Municipal, attended the summit and addressed that Shenzhen had created good environment for development of SparkLink technology, including support of the first SparkLink OpenLab to become a global leading technology incubation service platform. Shenzhen, which is a highland of the ICT industry, would encourage adoption of SparkLink products and collaboration between upper stream and lower reaches of the industrial chain so as to form a rich and diversified industrial ecosystem as soon as possible.
“Standardization in the digital age is playing an irreplaceable basic role. The SparkLink is one of the fundamental standards for building intelligent connections in the digital era.” said Mr. Zhang Xiaogang, chairman of the SparkLink Alliance and former chairman of ISO, in his speech. Since establishment of the SparkLink Alliance two years before, members have been carrying out standardization, industrialization and internationalization of the SparkLink technology. Next, the alliance will further consolidate consensus of the industry and unite upper stream and lower organizations of the industrial chain. The alliance aims to be a global and specialized industrial platform, which is market-oriented, innovation-based and standards-bridged.
Wu Hequan, chairman of the expert committee and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering brought the technology evolution roadmap of the SparkLink, which is to ensure a good match of the technology evolution and core business requirements, and a good match of the standard progress and rhythm of industrial adoption, in the meeting by video address. According to the technology roadmap, the SparkLink 1.0 standards have been completed, which focus on building the SLB, SLE and end-to-end core functions between two devices. The SparkLink 2.0 standards have launched some projects, which expends access layer capability and defines SparkLink native applications. The followed SparkLink 3.0+ standards will be in line with new business requirements and maintain technological competitiveness. First of all, academician Wu advised the Alliance to concentrate on commercial usage of the SparkLink 1.0. Nevertheless, new spectrum for SparkLink and application scalability shall always be kept in mind.
Mr. Sun Zhiyong, deputy secretary-general of SparkLink Alliance, reported on the progress of the alliance on behalf of the secretariat, which includes development of organization structure and members, management and flow documents, SparkLink standardization, technical report and white paper, industry promotion, external cooperation, and internationalization. Members of the alliance are growing fast, from 80 at the beginning to 240 now. The SparkLink standards achieved a milestone that the Release 1.0 standard has been officially released, and the Release 2.0 standard has been launched. Series of SparkLink radio chips and terminals are about to be available in the near future, which kicks off commercialization process of the SparkLink. The alliance will then focus on four aspects of work which include standardization, test and certification, industrial ecosystem, and alliance building, so as to build the SparkLink Alliance into the most influential standard and industry organization in the world.
The SparkLink International Academic Committee was officially launched at the summit, headed by Zhang Wenjun who is director of the National Engineering Research Center of Digital Television, IEEE fellow, chairman of IEEE Shanghai section, and professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University. The committee will bring SparkLink technology to international academic communities and put forward challenged high-value academic issues. As a result, the SparkLink standards and industrial development are promoted.
Mr. Zhang Wenping and Mr. Zhou Xiaobing jointly unveiled the first SparkLink OpenLab, which aims to accelerate the incubation of SparkLink technology. Mr. Zhang is director of the OpenLab. Thanks to supports from Shenzhen government, the SparkLink OpenLab will be a platform to gather software and hardware resources in the industry chain, and to jointly carry out innovative research, product test, technical discussion and technology demonstration.
In the SparkLink commercial products roadmap session, up to 16 alliance members released their product plan. They are iTest Tech., DT LinkTester, StarPoint, Triductor Technology, Sylincom, Bouffalo Lab, PATEO CONNECT+ Tech., Eagle Tech., XCMG New Energy, DDPAI, Zhenjiang Shengyan Tech., Huawei, Appotronics, GOOVIS of NED Optics, and Dongfeng Trucks. The commercial products which include test instruments, radio chipsets, modules and devices are to be available from the 4th quarter of 2022 to 2023. The first release of the roadmap marks the official commencement of SparkLink commercialization.
The SparkLink commercial products roadmap was testified by Mr. Wen Ku, board chairman of the China Communications Standardization Association (CCSA). Mr. Wen has always been keen on the commercialization of SparkLink technology. First thing first, the shipments of SparkLink chips should be boosted as soon as possible through cars, mobile phones, tablets and others. He also hoped the alliance to build an health biosphere in addition to the “circle of friends”.
To ensure conformance, interoperability and performance of SparkLink products, the Alliance has established SparkLink testing and certification system. The launch of SparkLink commercial product test and certification means the Test&Certification working group is ready off the mark to promote instrument development and evaluation, test laboratory construction, and radio chips and products testing in accordance with the SparkLink testing and certification documents. Mrs. Feng Zhifang, deputy director of New Business Department of the Shenzhen Academy of Information and Communications (SAICT) which is south branch of the CAICT, Mr. Zhou Gang, head of south China branch of the China Electronic Standardization Institute (CESI), and Mr. Zhou Rufeng, marketing director of StarPoint, shared the moment and their plans on the stage on behalf of the SparkLink Test&Certification group leaders and the test instrument enterprise.
Mr. Xiao Li, director of the SAICT, together with leaders and deputy leaders of the demand and standards working group and representatives of the standard leading members published the SparkLink standards Release 1.0, which are the core work and key achievement of the alliance. It took SparkLink Alliance about one and a half years to develop 12 standards in the Release 1.0 with original technology innovation, including access layer, basic service layer, general functions, e.g. architecture, identification, etc., and security and testing. The publication of the SparkLink standard lay solid ground for commercialization of the SparkLink technology.
Mr. Zhou Gang, who is also general manager of Shenzhen Saixi Information Technology Co., Ltd., published the white paper on “Industrialization Promotion of the SparkLink Wireless Short Distance Communication Technology (SparkLink1.0)", which was jointly issued by delegates from working groups. It takes one and a half years to complete the white paper from Mar. of 2021. There are five chapters in the white paper, which are short-range wireless communications market analysis, typical application scenarios of SparkLink technology, SparkLink technology standards, SparkLink industrialization, and summary and prospect. The work is led by the Demand and Standards Group, jointly compiled by the four major industry promotion groups including smart cars, smart homes, smart terminals, and smart manufacturing, the spectrum group, the test and certification group, and the security group. Altogether, totally 31 members contributed to the white paper. The white paper will help industrial partners to better understand SparkLink technology and accelerate its adoptions.
Dr. Xiao Lingyun, deputy director of the Defect Products Administration Center of the China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS), which is also Products Safety Research Institute, delivered a speech titled "SparkLink Security and Safety Construction". With the rapid development of the global industry Internet of Things (IoT), the security of the industry IoT has drawn more and more attention, said Dr. Xiao The SparkLink Alliance established Security and Safety working group in Mar. 2022, focusing on the network security and functional safety for the SparkLink technology and its applications.
Thanks to actively involvement and contribution of the members, the alliance will never be here without them. The alliance rewarded twenty-two of them for the prominent contributions to the SparkLink standards Release 1.0 and to SparkLink industrial promotion. There are eleven members are in the first category which have play leading role in standardization and contributed major or key technical proposals. They are CAICT, CESI, CNIS, Sahnghai Jiaotong Univ., China Mobile, Huawei, ZTE, MediaTek, Datang Gohigh, TCL, Xiaomi. The others eleven members have actively invested in SparkLink prototype demonstration, product and solution development, industrial policy and other fields to effectively promote SparkLink industry commercialization. They are the State Radio_monitoring_center and Testing Center (SRTC), China Automobile Technology and Research Center (CATARC), IGRS, StarPoint, Lenovo, Sylincom, Triductor Tech., BAIC, PATEO CONNECT+ Tech., Eagle Tech., and AI-Link.
The SparkLink Alliance has always adhered to concept of open and actively cooperates with other standard organizations and industrial entities. During the summit, the SparkLink Alliance signed MOU for collaboration with China Audio Industry Association (CAIA), New industrialization and Intelligent Building Industry section of China Society of Building Materials Industry Economy (CSBMIE), Intelligent Car Connectivity Industry Ecosystem Alliance (ICCE), and Guangdong Innovation Center of Smart Home (GICSH). In the future, the SparkLink Alliance and all these partners will launch mechanism of regular exchanges, carry out standardization of SparkLink technology, joint prototype demonstration and industrial promotion.
Signed by Mr. Zhang Xiaogang, board chairman of SparkLink Alliance, and Mr. Huang Wei, secretary general of CAIA
Signed by Mr. Zhang Xiaogang, chairman of SparkLink Alliance, and Mr. Yin Boyue, and Yin Boyue, chairman of prefabricated building subcommittee and chairman of New industrialization and Intelligent Building Industry section of CSBIME.
Signed by Mr. Zhang Xiaogang, board chairman of SparkLink Alliance, and Mr. Han Zhao, deputy secretary-general of ICCE.
Signed by Zhang Xiaogang, chairman of SparkLink Alliance, and Mr. Liu Tianxi, director of GICSH.
The surround view system for safety of commercial vehicles is of great significance to improve transportation safety. The SparkLink-based wireless surround view system stands out with competitive advantages of high fidelity, zero screen, low delay and easy deployment. Given these good points, the Automobile Transportation Center of Research Institute of Highway Ministry of Transport, Eagle Tech., XCMG Automotive Division, Dongfeng Trucks and Huawei signed an MOU to announced to joint work on of SparkLink surround view system.
Signed by: Mr. Zhou Wei, director of Automobile Transportation Center of Research Institute of Highway Ministry of Transport, Mr. Zheng Zhiyu, Chairman of Eagle Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., Mr. Yan Lizhi, regional director XCMG New Energy Vehicle Co., Ltd., Mr. Zhang Heng, deputy director of Technology Center of Dongfeng Trucks Co., Ltd., and Mrs. Wan Lei, Huawei fellow and director of Policy and Standard Patent Department of Smart Vehicle Solutions BU, Huawei.
In the last SparkLink sharing session, the summit invited eleven leading experts and innovators to give an insight of SparkLink technology and industry development. The speakers are from Fosun Capital, China Mobile, Huawei, Triductor Tech., Sylincom, Melexis, STMicroelectronics, Barrot, TCL, BEITONG, and Zhejiang ShengYan. The sharing content includes SparkLink investment opportunities, SparkLink radio chip specifications and roadmap, SparkLink products and solutions, and evolution of SparkLink technology.
The sharing session is presided over by Mr. Gao Yongqiang, member of the SparkLink Alliance expert committee and director of Standard of Huawei Smart Vehicles Solution BU. A follow-up news by official account of the SparkLink Alliance will detail the session.
As a convention, the summit present series SparkLink innovative demonstrations at the conference hall. This year, there are seven high-value prototype applications, which include SparkLink 360-degree surround view, SparkLink immersive atmosphere lighting, SparkLink active noise reduction, SparkLink wireless motor high-precision synchronized control, SparkLink 4K HD wireless projection, SparkLink 7.1 channel surround sound field, and SparkLink Fast Interference Sensing and Avoid (FISA). A follow-up news by official account of the SparkLink Alliance will detail the demos.
