Uncrewed Systems Technology 048 | Kodiak Driver | 5G focus | Tiburon USV | Skypersonic Skycopter and Skyrover | CES 2023 | Limbach L 2400 DX and L 550 EFG | NXInnovation NX 100 Enviro | Solar power focus | Protegimus Protection

40 Focus | 5G networks the altitude, pitch and yawof the balloon changes. Evenwith changes inwind speed and direction, there have been no handovers for mobile devices, and signal reception levels have remained unchanged. The results are being applied to uncrewed aircraft to provide 5Gcoverage on the ground. UAVs are being developed that use solar power or even hydrogen fuel cells to provide long-termavailability in the air. The 5G NR SA network has been tested in the air at an altitude of 14 km, delivering video calls on the 2.1 GHz band with download speeds of 90 Mbit/s and upload speeds of 23 Mbit/s over a 10 MHz bandwidth across an area of 450 km 2 . The network linked a three-way video call between the land-based test site, a mobile device operated from a boat and a control site 950 km away. Further land and heliborne tests demonstrated a user could stream 4K video to a mobile phone with an average latency of 1 ms above network speed. Signal strength trials, using a 5G-enabled device moving at 100 kph, proved full interoperability with ground-based masts. A fuel cell to power the UAV and the base station has been tested on the ground and provides 290 kW of power, with 20 kW for the base station. The key is a 9 m 2 digital steerable phased array antenna with 2048 dual polarisation phased array transceivers. This is equivalent to about 500 terrestrial antennas, and provides a 5G latency of around 1 ms. The phased array antenna uses beam steering to provide a configurable cell 100 km in diameter that can target areas of low coverage, such as radio ‘shadows’ that are created by hills or other geographical features. That helps provide more consistent network coverage. February/March 2023 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The 5G New Radio (NR) specification was a key step forward for 5G networks. It started in 2015 with Release 15 from the 3GPP group to add dynamic spectrum sharing, and is a key capability for uncrewed aircraft and ground vehicles. A standalone mode allows new 5G private networks to be set up independently without the need for an existing 4G/LTE infrastructure. That is particularly useful for controlling AGVs in a factory or UAVs on a farm. 5G NR uses frequency bands in two frequency ranges – range 1, for bands within the 410-7125 MHz; and range 2, for bands within 24,250 and 71,000 MHz. 5G NR SA includes a new 5G Packet Core architecture instead of relying on the 4G Evolved Packet Core. It is more cost-effective to roll out and provides higher data and energy efficiency. Ultra-reliable low-latency comms (URLLC ) is supported as one of the use cases for NR networks for AGVs, adding logical channel prioritisation (LCP) restrictions as well as enabling packet duplication. The radio resource controller (RRC) configures the protocol layers in the network and user equipment (UE). For instance, LCP restrictions made by the RRC, such as transmission time interval size, cell and naming of the logical channels, aim to prioritise URLLC data traffic from an AGV, reducing latency and improving vehicle control. It also allows for more robust links, as data packets are duplicated by the RRC over two distinct channels. 5G NewRadio An uncrewed aerial base station powered by a fuel cell (Courtesy of SPL)