Rajant, a provider of private wireless networks, successfully conducted tests that show police forces can use sUAVs (drones) linked with a mesh network on the licensed 4.9 GHz public safety band for aerial surveillance and pop-up connectivity.
Rajant worked with the Morehead Kentucky Police to apply for an experimental license from the Federal Communications Communication to fly a tethered drone integrated into a kinetic mesh network during a large outdoor event in July 2017 in Morehead, Kentucky. The drone flight’s purpose was to test the viability of an aerial broadband/surveillance system attached to a tethered drone to enhance situational awareness for police and first responders during similar events.
Morehead has a free public kinetic mesh network installed in its downtown area, with a combination of wireless network nodes and networking software that give instant Internet access to anyone within the network’s parameters. In a kinetic mesh network, an infinite amount of nodes can join the network without affecting bandwidth or throughput, so the node on the drone was able to tap into existing network infrastructure for instant connectivity. Additionally, kinetic mesh networks can run on licensed, unlicensed and military bands, so the tethered drone’s on-board network connection was able to use the 4.9 GHz band.
The tethered drone flight and pop-up connectivity test was a success, allowing rapid radio coverage as well as aerial video coverage during the outdoor festival, as seen in the above video. The Morehead Police flew Rajant’s drone 30 meters over the city and live-streamed the video coverage, showing high-bandwidth throughput is possible via a drone on a mesh network. Additionally, the wireless radio on the drone created a reliable pop-up aerial broadband network for Morehead’s public safety communications.
“We have a relatively small [police] department, and you want to make sure you have every angle covered [during these kinds of events],” said Morehead Mayor Jim Tom Trent. “If there’s an issue, we need to know where it is as quickly as possible, who’s involved, how many people need to respond, [and] who needs to respond, and that all starts with communication.”
By flying a camera-equipped drone to monitor an event from above, public safety entities gain “eyes in the sky” to augment the boots on the ground and stationary cameras, creating new levels of security, even at large outdoor venues. Stationary ground cameras have limitations on the perspective and angle they can capture, and police can’t be everywhere at once – so tethered UAVs flying overhead create an extra layer of support.
In addition to surveillance, police can use drones as an instant tower to create “temporary fixed” communications networked with a ground mesh in 4.9 GHz, augmenting their ground awareness with aerial on-the-spot connectivity, no matter where they are, providing real-time mission-critical data from wearables, cameras and other devices.
This is ideal for large municipal events like parades, solar eclipses, sporting or political events, or festivals. At these kinds of outdoor events, standard methods of connectivity may not be reliable due to heavy traffic from attendees, or may not even exist due to lack of towers, depending where the event takes place (e.g., the desert or remote fairgrounds).
If the network can run on both licensed and unlicensed bands (a preferred scenario for greater redundancy and versatility), then the benefits are two-fold: Event attendees get better reliability on their personal devices, while police and safety officials gain connectivity with less concern about interference or security issues, because they can use the 4.9 GHz spectrum.
While there are still current challenged to running tethered drones on the 4.9 GHz band due to regulations, this test showed creative solutions like this can be a safe and valid answer to rapid deployment of aerial communications, supporting cities’ missions regarding security and protection of life and property.
Source: Press Release