AutoAir project
Harwell campus-based Celestia Technologies Group UK Ltd (CTG-UK) worked with Airspan Communications Ltd under the AutoAir project which focused on solving challenges and issues related to transportation and autonomous vehicles systems.
CTG-UK was involved in the development of next-generation 5G antennas for road & rail networks and connected & autonomous vehicles. CTG-UK successfully engaged in the design, production and test of these antennas; which will also feature at the AutoAir Launch Show at the Millbrook Proving Ground.
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The project
UK 5G Test Bed for Connected, Automated Vehicles (CAV’s)
The AutoAir project is a consortium of partners led by Airspan Networks and is hosted at Millbrook. It is a unique, accelerated development programme for 5G technology and is based on small cells that operate on a “Neutral Host” basis. The shared neutral host platform allows multiple public and private mobile operators simultaneously to use the same infrastructure using network slicing, which can radically improve the economics for 5G networks.
Other partners in the AutoAir consortium are Blu WirelessTechnology, McLaren Applied Technologies, the 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey, Dense Air, Real Wireless, Quortus and Celestia Technologies Group.
The mobile network infrastructure installed at Millbrook Proving Ground as part of the AutoAir project consists of:
- 77 “small cell” base stations, 46 of which went live in February 2019. These use 2.3 GHz and 3.7 GHz spectrum
- 22 mmWave (60 GHz) access points around the High Speed Circuit
- 59 masts: 38 for the small cell base stations, 11 for the mmWave access points and an additional 10 for the mmWave mesh backhaul around the Hill Route
- 19 km of fibre-optic cable
- …over 70km of highly-specialised test tracks and multiple terrains.
