Unmanned Systems Technology 024 | Wingcopter 178 l 5G focus l UUVs insight l CES report l Stromkind KAT l Intelligent Energy fuel cell l Earthsense TerraSentia l Connectors focus l Advanced Engineering report

35 8K high-quality cameras on UAVs to a smartphone terminal, and for quickly downloading high-definition (HD) maps to vehicles. With Release 16, all of this can be achieved using mainstream, high- volume components that are developed for the consumer cellular phone business, allowing autonomous system designers to access the cost savings of volume production. These capabilities are all new to Release 16, but 5G also differs from the previous generations of cellular technologies by supporting a wide range of frequency bands. The specification allows the orthogonal frequency domain modulation (OFDM) protocols already used in 3G and 4G to operate in more than 30 different bands – from 700 MHz up to 2.6 GHz, which is just above the 2.4 GHz unlicenced band of wi-fi; 3.3 GHz up to 6 GHz, and even the 24-52 GHz ‘millimetre wave’ bands, allowing system designers to trade off data rate with range. Frequencies below 6 GHz are covered by the 5G New Radio (NR) specification that came in with Release 15 and can coexist with existing 2G, 3G and 4G networks as Non-Standalone (NSA) radios, compared to the all-new 5G Standalone (SA) systems. The advantage of SA is that the radios based on it are simpler and consume less power, and will improve performance in throughput up to the edge of the network, while supporting the ultra-reliable low latency comms (URLLC) of Release 16. Although NSA 5G radios will be the first to roll out, they will eventually move to SA. Higher frequency systems, at 52 GHz and even 60 GHz, support data rates of up to 20 Gbit/s but with short range. For example, some researchers are using this technology to send data 5G communications | Focus Unmanned Systems Technology | February/March 2019 5G more will herald more responsive remote control of unmanned cars. This Audi Q7 SUV demonstrated the technology at CES 2019 using chips and antennas from Qualcomm (Courtesy of Audi)

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