October 26, 2020
Dr Harilaos Koumaras, scientific responsible for Media Networks Laboratory’s H2020 project 5G!Drones, along with representatives from partners Cosmote, HEPTA, CAFA Tech, robots.expert, Municipality of Egaleo and INFOLYSiS conducted technical flight trials with drones in 5G network at the Stavros Mavrothalassitis municipal stadium of Egaleo, on 19-20 October 2020.
The purpose of these feasibility tests is to collect inputs and verify the interaction between 5G and drones during crowded events, under the 5G!Drones use case connectivity. More specifically, a co-existence flight was carried out successfully between CAFA Mavic and Hepta drones, that flied at the same time. Hepta drone had a 5G phone on board, which transmits C2 information between the NUC server QControl application and the drone. A 5G telephone is attached to the CAFA Mavic drone remote controller, which transmits C2 information between the UGCS C2 application in the NUC server and the drone. Hepta’s mission was to climb to a height of 20m and hover at this level for 5 minutes. CAFA’s drone mission was to make a circular flight around the Hepta drone at a height of 10 m and a radius of 20 meters from the Hepta drone, the flight length was 5 minutes.
On the next day, all aforementioned partners tested the offering of a better level of network services with drones under 5G, avoiding dropped calls and degraded internet connectivity during mass events in Cosmote Academy premises, in Athens.
