In this work, we demonstrate the autonomous flight of an aerial 5G relay. The flying autonomous 5G relay is the first of its kind in providing enhanced end-to-end 5G connectivity to ground users from a terrestrial base station with an autonomous placement algorithm. Our flying 5G relay solution is the integration of a custom-built drone and a 5G base station based on OpenAirInterface. The ground user carries a commercial 5G module (Quectel) terminal. This demonstration validates the throughput gain brought by exploiting the UAV relay.

Please also see our previous work on "Autonomous Aerial Cellular Relaying Robots".