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#News(IoTStack) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]
Vodafone’s Radio Positioning System (RPS), which was first announced at Mobile World Congress in March 2018, uses a 4G modem and SIM attached to a drone, enabling a self-learning artificial intelligence system to calculate the position of the drone. The system will be able to indicate if a drone has veered off an agreed flight path, helping to safeguard aircraft, civilians, sensitive facilities and other drones.
Representatives of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the European Commission observed the latest trials of RPS at a Vodafone test facility in Aldenhoven. To perform the trial, Vodafone secured an exemption under the German Regulation for the Operation of Unmanned Aircraft**, which entered into force in April 2017. Permission to fly was granted by the applicable regional aviation authority.
The trial demonstrated that existing 4G networks, which are optimised for ground-based users, could simultaneously be used to monitor drone flights at up to 120 metres above ground level. This confirmed that RPS could be used as a back-up to GPS location, which is easier to disable or spoof than mobile technology supported by secure SIM cards. Conventional radar does not work with small devices like drones.
For the first time Vodafone also showed that it was possible to identify two drones in close proximity and manage them separately. In future this could be done at mass scale with SIM cards in drones serving a similar function to aircraft transponders.
The 4G mobile network also supported a live video stream (1080p) and image transfer at an average download speed of more than 9 megabits per second, which will support several commercial use cases.
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