Drone for Wireless

A system of autonomous flying robots for sensing and connectivity

Our Goal

The future is the era of connected robotics thanks to super-fast wireless communications. With the upsurge of interest in connected intelligence in the context of future generations of wireless networks, we are passionate about connecting the sky to the ground by integrating cutting-edge communication technology (5G) and the fast-growing robotics industry.

Here at EURECOM, where OpenAirInterface (OAI) a pioneer of the open source 5G/LTE implementation was born, we try to make one step closer to the future of connected intelligence. Our goal is to research and prototype custom-built drones powered by OAI-5G radio connectivity. We consider various scenarios ranging from flying base stations/relays to radio frequency (RF) sensing and localization applications.

Connected Robotics

At EURECOM, we aim to develop a new platform that is the first of its kind in integrating robot intelligence and network management. This platform will offer an end-to-end solution from autonomous robot control to establishing, managing, and optimizing wireless networks (wifi, cellular, etc.). Our solution involves combining various tools from communications and robotics, such as OpenAirInterface (OAI) and QGroundControl (QGC).

Aerial 5G Integrated Access and Backhaul

In April 2023, we demonstrated the Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) capabilities of an aerial robot offering 5G connectivity to ground users. The robot is integrated with a distributed unit (DU) and has 5G wireless backhaul access to a terrestrial central unit (CU). Such aerial robots have less computational complexity than running entire base station applications and can be configured dynamically, tailoring to the network demands. The complete radio and access network solution is based on open-source software from OpenAirInterface and off-the-shelf commercial 5G mobile terminals.

Aerial 5G Relay

In January 2023, we successfully demonstrated the first autonomous aerial 5G relaying. The flying 5G relay is empowered by the world's premier fully open-source 5G protocol implementation (OpenAirInterface) integrated into a custom-built drone.

OAI-powered LTE Drone

In 2017, we developed the first 4G/LTE flying relay based on OAI software. This flying relay could autonomously find the optimal location in the sky maximizing the link throughput between the ground user and the terrestrial base station.

The designed box, shown in the picture, includes the OAI-based relay and a mini-PC (for running the autonomous relay positioning) in a very compact form suitable for mounting on the drone.