✅ Finalized
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The pilot tested an edge–cloud telemedicine platform bringing real-time health monitoring and rapid emergency response to remote technical workers operating in difficult or isolated environments. The real-customer context was a company that sets up and services wind turbines: hundreds of its workers are based on construction sites in rural and remote areas with limited connectivity, which makes health and safety monitoring difficult. The solution combined portable telemedicine units, wearable devices and edge processing to deliver secure, real-time patient monitoring without depending on a constant link to a central system, and, in emulation with simulated devices, the approach was shown to scale to hundreds of sites across Europe.
To validate a scalable, secure edge–cloud health-monitoring platform giving remote and rural workers reliable access to medical care and emergency response, and to prove the approach can scale to many sites at once without added complexity.
TMA (trial lead); ATOS, Siemens, CYSEC, Kentyou, I2CAT and EBOS (technology partners) — COGNIFOG project (Horizon Europe)
Workers on remote construction sites, such as those installing and servicing wind turbines, are often based in rural areas, far from conventional healthcare infrastructure and without reliable connectivity. The pilot addressed this by combining portable telemedicine units (‘suitcases’) equipped with medical-grade sensors and video-consultation tools, wearable smartwatches for continuous vital-sign tracking, fall detection and SOS alerts, and a secure cloud platform linking it all to medical staff.
Rather than depending on a constant connection to a distant server, health data is captured and processed close to the worker, at the site office, and only what is needed moves onward to the cloud. This kept the system responsive even in connectivity-constrained locations, and allowed the trial to test something conventional telemedicine set-ups rarely need to prove: that the same architecture could scale from a single construction company to an EU-wide operation without straining the central infrastructure.
Relevant UTA challenge: Public health and remote/rural healthcare access
Relevant UTA solution: Edge–cloud computing for healthcare and remote patient monitoring
Completed
Key aspects that have been tested and demonstrated: edge-based health-data processing, wearable and portable device integration, automated multi-site deployment and large-scale scalability for remote telemedicine.
The trial demonstrated that an edge-first health-monitoring platform can extend reliable, secure patient care to workers in remote locations, while cutting energy use by roughly three-quarters compared with a conventional set-up. Scalability was validated at a genuinely large scale, up to 540 simulated sites across the EU, with no loss of service quality, giving a strong, evidence-based case for wider deployment.
A potential next application is extending the validated architecture to more demanding mobile telemedicine environments, including vessels at sea, where changing locations add further connectivity challenges. The trial infrastructure can continue to serve as a testbed for future demonstrations, building on the scalability and reliability validated through this pilot.
