The legendary hills of Scotland have long been admired for their rugged beauty. The same features that are so pleasing to the eye, however, can be problematic for both locals and tourists who may be in need of emergency assistance. Originally founded in 1965, Scottish Mountain Rescue has expanded to include human and rescue dog climbers and cavers, helicopters, and now drones. According to BBC Scotland, drones capable of relaying a 5G signal could be life savers.
Scottish Mountain Rescue drone operator, Alistair MacIntyre, explained, “We would still be doing the searching but if anything was questionable, that could be beamed right back to our control vehicle or to our control base and we could get more people involved in making a decision as to whether we need to send a foot team in.”
The newest innovation being tested involves employing multiple drones to create 5G pop-up mobile phone networks. Small 5G boxes walked in on the ground or flown in by drones can share information with each other in a secure environment dedicated to a search and rescue mission. Successful testing could also lead to using this sort of drone-enabled communications system at sea, or in a disaster setting where the network has gone down, according to BBC Scotland.
“5G is a new technology and with new technology there are challenges. It’s not enough to provide a network, but we need to provide a secure network,” Senior lecturer Laith Al-Jobouri told BBC Scotland. “There is a lot of information that is going to be shared in this network so we test it to make sure it’s safe and can be used by the authorized people only.”
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