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BT and partner Stratospheric Platforms will explore the concept as part of a new project, which will test antenna technology designed to be mounted on a High-Altitude Platform Station (Haps) aircraft.
The Stratospheric Platforms aircraft has a lightweight airframe with a wingspan of 60m. Designed to fly using liquid hydrogen fuel, it will have a 140kg payload and a ‘loiter time’ of up to six days. It will fly in the stratosphere, between 10-16km to 50km above the Earth’s surface, and could provide coverage across an area with a diameter of 140km.
The antenna trials, at BT’s R&D headquarters at Adastral Park in Suffolk, aim to provide a solution to one of the final challenges of mobile connectivity – getting coverage to the hardest to reach areas.
BT said the project, which has received funding from Innovate UK, “could offer transformational opportunities for sectors operating in remote areas such as transport, maritime security, and search and rescue, and could provide faster and more seamless connectivity direct to consumers' mobile devices in remote areas.”
As well as extending the reach of UK network infrastructure, the Haps aircraft could provide redundancy in the event of a disaster, supporting humanitarian aid or disaster relief. It could also be used for remote monitoring of industry or agriculture.
SPL’s antenna technology is designed to provide uninterrupted 4G and 5G connectivity directly to consumer smart phones. The phased array antenna could deliver up to 150Mbps across an area of 15,000km2 – equivalent to the average footprint of 450 terrestrial masts – through 500 individually steerable beams.
The Haps aircraft could also be cheaper and more energy efficient than extending terrestrial infrastructure into remote areas, BT said.
The partners will first develop a secure 5G Haps communications demonstration system. SPL’s phased array antenna will be placed on a high building, simulating a high-altitude platform, to test its interaction with BT’s 5G secure architecture. This test will support multiple groups of users and explore different potential applications.
“This highly innovative and transformative project has the potential to further enhance our UK 4G and 5G footprint, which is already the largest and most reliable in the UK, to connect unserved rural areas and enable exciting new use cases for private users,” said Tim Whitley, managing director of research and network strategy at BT Group.
Richard Deakin, CEO of SPL, said: “This partnership will build further on SPL’s world-first 5G demonstration from the stratosphere achieved in 2022. With BT, we’re pleased to continue our journey supporting the UK to become a science superpower.”
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