Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have long been touted as one of the iconic use cases for 5G. While we are yet to see the full disruptive potential of drones being deployed en-masse, they remain inextricably linked to the futuristic image of a fully connected society.
With its near ubiquitous 4G coverage and ambitious 5G rollout plans, the GCC could well be one of the first regions in the world to start utilising drones and UAVs to their full potential, showcasing what is possible to the rest of the world. Connectivity is critical for the deployment of successful UAV services and the GCC has a rock solid foundation on that front.
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The superior connectivity offered by 4G and 5G allows low-altitude aerial vehicles like drones to execute complex tasks like traveling for greater distances and uploading high-definition videos.
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“Several innovative use-cases of drones are emerging, especially for smart cities and critical communications applications. Ubiquitous high-speed connectivity is a key critical element in unlocking the true potential of drones. Existing commercial cellular networks are designed for terrestrial and human use. However, augmenting these networks with 5G critical communication solutions can and will provide the seamless connectivity required for drones, and Nokia has the required technology and expertise to make it happen,” said Shady Makhlouf, Nokia’s Government and Cities Leader in the Middle East and Africa.
Until now, advancements in UAV take up have been hampered by patchy network signal and reliability. The rapid adoption of 5G technology in the GCC region will allow operators to unlock some of the potential of drone based technologies. Network slicing by the region’s telcos will also open up a range of possibilities for drone operators.
“While with 4G connectivity, drones can roam beyond a finite radius by handovers between cells. With 5G connectivity, drones can take advantage of increased bandwidth and lower latency. This enables higher bandwidth drone applications such as live video and allows us to offload computations to the cloud due to the low latency, enabling the cloud to function as a central orchestrator for a fleet of drones. All this leads to an era of networked multi-drone fleets,” says Prasanth Ananth, Research Technical Leader in the Enterprise and Industrial Automation Lab at Nokia Bell Labs.
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