GoKawiilOn a balcony not far from World Cup venue AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, a dot suddenly popped up on a large screen, representing an unwelcome drone snaking toward a rectangular no-fly zone. Within a few seconds, a "friendly" drone zipped past the balcony to intercept and encourage the unwelcome aircraft to turn back.
The wayward drone wasn't identified using standard methods such as radar, however. Instead, its flight path was tracked by 5G cellular radios just like the ones you see on towers and buildings.
This proof-of-concept demo was put on by AT&T and Ericsson to show off their Integrated Sensing and Communication technology, timed to coincide with one of the world's largest sporting events. Drones were the focus that day, but the same technology could be applied to track other subjects like vehicles or people within range of the 5G network.
Ericsson representatives Kristen Cone and Rahul Patel demonstrated ISAC, a tracking technology for identifying objects such as drones using 5G signals. Jeff Carlson/CNET
Although it was a small-scale demo, it comes amid a growing proliferation of drones operating in areas they're not supposed to fly. According to Reuters, the FBI said more than 700 drones were confiscated by US agencies during the World Cup, some of them piloted by operators who didn't realize they were in no-fly zones that had been extended for the matches.
But as we've seen in Ukraine and Russia, tiny drones can be highly elusive and destructive -- a nightmare scenario for planners of events like the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles or even small public gatherings.
Real-time data from a trio of towers
For this demonstration, the companies created a "multistatic sensing configuration" using three cell towers, each containing the same kind of Ericsson Massive MIMO, or multiple-input multiple-output, radios found on other nearby cell sites, with a sensing capability enabled. They were spaced about 1.6 miles away from the demo area.
In this demonstration, tracking software identified a potentially threatening drone (the blue dot) and tracked it before it crossed into the no-fly zone (in red). AT&T/Ericsson
When the rogue object was sensed by the network, well outside the no-fly zone, the system's software classified it, using signal processing and AI algorithms, as a drone flying about 11 mph. If the drone had been a real threat, other agencies, such as law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, would have received the same live data to determine what action to take.
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