Let’s begin with a couple of background explanations for readers who are not following the telecommunications industry. 6G is the next generation of mobile communications to come following 5G. Most readers will be familiar with 5G and are maybe even lucky enough to use 5G communications where they live and work. Today 6G technologies are in the research phase and expected to begin commercial rollouts in 2030. Here in lies what I believe is the first ‘gotcha’. Having spent many years of my career in telecoms, I know how long we talked about 5G and the holy grail it would bring. These conversations went on for years before actual deployment and now deployment is going for years, without earth shattering changes from 5G being available to date. This leads me to not be overly convinced by the 2030 timeframe.
But, this article is about drones, so why do we care about 6G? There is something called Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) that enables the spatial location of objects by integrating sensing with communication capabilities in mobile networks. This is planned to be included in the 6G standard and preparation work is ongoing in 3GPP release 19 – Pre-6G. ISAC integrates sensing and spatial location of passive (not connected) objects into the mobile communication network, and enables a new category of use cases for the location of drones, vehicles, humans and animals. Animals? Maybe a topic for a different article…
ISAC for drones
Let’s continue with the topic of drones. Detecting and tracking drones is an ongoing challenge in our industry as we move toward BVLOS. Taking this a step further into autonomous flight the question of drones detecting and avoiding infrastructure and other flying aircraft becomes an even larger challenge.
With ISAC, the mobile communications infrastructure can ‘sense’ drone traffic. This would be helpful to track friendly drones, malicious drones and provide assistance data to UAV traffic management systems for navigation and collision avoidance. According to a report published by Ericsson, the level of complexity involved in spatially locating an object depends on factors such as the spectrum used, the amount of clutter in the environment, the object’s speed, whether the object is airborne or on the ground and the level of accuracy needed.
The German perspective
FAU Studien aus der Elektrotechnik published a report on 6G which also delved into the topic of 6G for drone traffic management. Their study put forth the the idea that “6G technology is a key enabler to provide ultra-reliable and low latency communication and integrated sensing capabilities needed to create a cohesive, intelligent airspace traffic ecosystem.”
This report looks at the use of the mobile communications network to provide additional data between drone operators and the organisations responsible for airborne traffic management. But utilising the existing mobile communications infrastructure this would reduce the need for additional edge networking to be deployed in as many locations to monitor the traffic and identify opportunities for collision.
Research in Motion
Earlier this year, the US Department of Defense even chimed in on this topic considering how this could be used to identify and manage drones flying in restricted zones.
Actually this isn’t a new topic. Labs and research in the Asia-Pacific region were looking at this topic since 2021/2022.
It’s great to see this concept being discussed at conferences and in news interviews, although the lead time for deployment in 2030 (or later) leads me to quote an old saying ‘good things come to those who wait?” I would expect that in the next 5 years the drone industry solves these challenges with different technology, otherwise the projected scale of drone and air mobility growth would be impossible. I hope to be pleasantly surprised on this topic, but for now I’m a bit “let’s wait and see where it all goes.” Exciting use cases none the less, but maybe not the holy grail for drones.
