5G Mobile Network Service Specification for Safe and Efficient Drone Flights

This paper describes how a Service Specification Guideline has been used to define a new Service Specification in the field of 5G drones. Frequentis began developing such a guide back in 2010 during the development of system-wide information management (SWIM) as part of the first joint research project on European air traffic management (SESAR phase 1). The paper discusses how the guideline, which has been evolved over time, was used in the recently published NetworkCoverage Service [1], a general architecture comprising stakeholders, services, interfaces and data models for the automated data exchange between Mobile Network Operators (MNO) and the Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) ecosystem. A separate section deals with the NetworkCoverage service itself, which provides four-dimensional information about data link conditions along a flight route or in a specific area. It provides information about whether or not the connectivity conditions are good enough for secure and reliable data connectivity that meets a certain level of service and is provided by individual connectivity providers.