AT&T recently demonstrated a 5G “Flying COW” (Cell on Wings) over a quiet, non-descript field in rural Missouri.
“We had intermittent, weak LTE signal at the flight location before we launched the 5G Flying COW,” said Ethan Hunt, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Principal Program Manager, AT&T. “We flew the drone up to about 300 feet, turned on the signal and it began transmitting strong 5G coverage to approximately 10 square miles.”
AT&T says the drone could be used to quickly set-up 5G service for first responders in a search and rescue mission.
“Our focus within the drone world is connectivity. All of our drone solutions have that focus,” said Art Pregler, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Program Director, AT&T. “5G brings a lot of new capability to the table. We can connect a lot larger number of devices with 5G. When we put that up, we can share with a larger population.”
AT&T also highlighted two other drone projects:
- Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flight operations, GEOCAST air operations — this would allow the pilot to operate a drone from a completely different location. An AT&T-patented flight control system allows operators and tethered Flying COWs to be separated by thousands of miles. In the next phase, AT&T will launch untethered Flying COWs.
- 5G RoboDogs — which could be used for a number of situations, such as search and rescue or bomb disablement.