What are the latest developments in 5G? KellyOnTech

In this episode, I will answer questions from netizens and talk about the latest developments in 5G.

Question 1: Is the promotion of 5G slow worldwide?

5G has been rapidly becoming mainstream. According to a GSA (Global Mobile Suppliers Association) report, as of June 2021, 58 countries/regions around the world already have 5G networks, up from 38 a year ago.

Question 2: Who is leading the global 5G race?

This depends on the analytical factors you wish to use. If you look at the number of 5G patents owned by a single company, according to the statistics report of IPlytics, the Chinese manufacturer Huawei has more than 15% of the authorized and valid patents worldwide, ranking first in the world. If calculated according to the sum of the number of 5G patents of companies in various countries, South Korea’s Samsung and LG together slightly exceeded China.

Source: IPlytics — Who is leading the 5G patent race?

5G Commercial Use Case — 5G Drones

Previously, I introduced the latest development of the first killer applications supported by 5G, XR extended reality (Video). Today I will mainly talk about another commercial field of 5G: 5G drones.

Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G platform

In August 2021, Qualcomm launched the Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G platform, which is the world’s first drone platform and reference design that provides 5G and AI functions.

The Qualcomm® Flight™ RB5 5G platform is designed based on its high-quality robot platform, providing powerful low-power heterogeneous computing through artificial intelligence, 5G and remote Wi-Fi 6 connections, providing 15 TOPS and supporting 7 cameras Concurrency.

TOPS is the abbreviation of Tera Operations Per Second, which is a unit of AI computing power. 1TOPS means that the processor can perform one trillion (10¹²) operations per second.

Incidentally, Qualcomm’s flight platform is the platform used by the Ingenuity Helicopter small robotic helicopter that took off and landed vertically on Mars in the NASA Mars 2020 mission.

The Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G platform currently supports more than 200 robot and drone ecosystem members worldwide and promotes the global standardization of 5G drones in organizations such as 3GPP, GSMA, the Global UTM Alliance, the Joint Air Connect Initiative (ACJA), and ASTM. This platform will support evolving applications and new 5G application scenarios in the fields of film and entertainment, security and emergency response, delivery, national defense, inspection, surveying and mapping.

Vodafone precise positioning technology

Speaking of 5G drones, I would like to mention precise positioning technology here. British telecommunications company Vodafone and global navigation company Sapcorda have successfully tried out new precision positioning technology. Vodafone uses Sapcorda’s latest-generation Global Navigation System Service (GNSS) correction service’s precise point location-real-time kinematics (PPP-RTK) technology to accurately track the lanes the vehicle travels in a 100-kilometre journey.

This technology can provide accurate positions for vehicles, machinery and equipment of the Internet of Things by correcting factors such as the curvature of the earth, atmospheric delay and the time difference of global positioning satellites, increasing the accuracy from 3 metres to 10 centimetres.

This precise positioning service provided by Vodafone is an important supplement to its “Telecom as a Service” (TaaS) model, and precise positioning is critical to the popularization of autonomous vehicles.

A typical business case for 5G drones in China

A typical business case for 5G drones in China is the 5G Leap Jiuzhai cloud experience live broadcast platform exclusively built by China Telecom Sichuan Company. The 5G drones they used can last for more than 30 minutes, with a maximum range of up to 12 kilometres and a flying altitude of up to one kilometre. Visitors can experience flying into the environment through this platform without leaving home, and feel the beauty of Jiuzhai that cannot be experienced walking on the plank road.