- Claiming to be the first CE-certified solution, it is for both public sector and industrial operations
- The company noted that it has already demonstrated the use of its drone networks solution with the New York Power Authority
- With Nokia MXIE, it boasts of collecting and processing drone data in real-time at the edge cloud
The Finnish telecom company, Nokia recently announced its turnkey drone-in-a-box solution offering which is designed to meet the growing demands of organizations like public safety agencies, smart cities, construction, energy and defence. As per Nokia, it is the first CE-certified solution, which meets the safety requirements of the European Union. Manufactured in Europe, the Nokia Drone Networks solution claims to connect over public and private 4G/LTE and 5G networks to enhance situational awareness for first responders and other professionals. The company stated that in addition to assessing damage, these drones can be utilized in search and rescue activities. Interestingly, they can also be programmed to manage autonomous scheduled flights for applications like additional security at large events or to manage regular remote equipment inspections.
The solution can be operated remotely and comprises Nokia drones, docking stations, dual gimbal cameras and edge cloud processing using Nokia MX Industrial Edge (MXIE). Noting that beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations with real-time kinetic (RTK) positioning improves situational awareness, the press release added that dual modem connectivity allows its drones to simultaneously connect to multiple networks and comply with system redundancy, as needed by aviation regulatory bodies.
Notably, the telecom company partnered with the New York Power Authority to demonstrate the use of this solution, connected over private LTE, for transmission line inspection.
Reshaping the Industrial UAV Market
Head of Embedded Wireless Solutions at Nokia, Thomas Eder remarked, “Our mission is to reshape the industrial UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) market, providing enhanced situational awareness to aid search and rescue, surveillance, and other UAV operations in a wide variety of industries. Nokia Drone Networks has been designed to comply with the remote operation requirements of aviation regulatory bodies such as EASA in Europe and FAA in the United States. This will help us address growing market demands as a turnkey provider with a solution designed and produced in Europe. The unique feature set enabling the integration of Nokia drones with third-party applications will aid the transformation of the drones, allowing them to be used as a flying data collection platform leveraging reliable 4G and 5G edge cloud connectivity.”
As per Nokia, with its hardware architecture, integrated software innovations and 4G/5G connectivity, these drones offer over 50 minutes of flight time and cover around 30 km depending on the deployed configuration. The company plans to feature this solution during Helsinki’s Critical Communications World, to be held later this month.
Over 150 years old Nokia is a Finland-headquartered company which believes in creating technology that helps the world act together. The telecom operator partners with companies for critical networks, across mobile, fixed, and cloud networks.
