TORONTO – Rogers Communications said today it expanded its 5G network into Selkirk and Steinbach, Manitoba, and St. Catharines, Ontario – and it was used it to direct the flight of a drone.
Rogers’s 5G network now reaches 173 cities and towns and is the largest 5G network in Canada.
The niftier bit of the announcement is Rogers for Business worked with InDro Robotics and the University of British Columbia’s MéridaLabs on Canada’s first remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) flight over a 5G network at the UBC campus in Vancouver.
The company said this shows 5G “will enable the ability to fly drones on autonomous missions from remote command centres connected over a 5G network,” reads the press release.
The 5G infrastructure Rogers has at UBC helps researchers and partners to explore things like parcel tracking, scheduling, and delivery by remote vehicles – and 5G drones are expected to help the future of agriculture, natural resources, infrastructure and utilities, construction, first responders and so on.
As the company continues to work on the new network technology, “we’ll begin to see more 5G use cases come to life that will play a critical role in transforming and evolving entire industries across the country,” said Jorge Fernandes, CTO, Rogers, in the release.
“Access to 5G for drones is the step we needed to unleash the potential for drones to become far more productive,” added Philip Reece, president and CEO of InDro Robotics.
“The amount of data that can be exchanged at near zero latency means we can now separate the pilot and crew from being on scene with the drone, engineers can carry out critical infrastructure inspection from their office increasing speed of response and safety. First responders will be able to gain great situational awareness before they arrive at an accident and share valuable information back to incident command live from the scene.”
Photo courtesy of Rogers.
