How space-enabled 5G connectivity powers city life

Terrestrial high-speed telecommunications links within cities are being enhanced by satellites that provide resilient connections when services are disrupted on the ground, as well as linking hard-to-reach communities and infrastructure.

ESA has been working with industry and municipalities to identify how space can best support smart cities, from satellite-enabled air quality control to traffic management and green waste recycling.

Exactly how the agency is integrating space into terrestrial 5G systems will be discussed by Florin-Catalin Grec, a Global Navigation Satellite System Evolutions Strategy Engineer in ESA’s Navigation Directorate, and his colleague Stefano Cioni, a Telecommunication Systems Engineer in ESA’s Technology, Engineering and Quality Directorate.

The pair will explore ongoing and future research-and-development activities.

ESA’s 5G hub – a centre for innovation designed to help the space industry to take advantage of the immense potential of converged satellite and terrestrial communications networks to create innovative applications that benefit society and the environment – will be highlighted by Antonio Franchi, who is Head of Future Programme Acquisition, Satellite Constellations, 5G and Artificial Intelligence in the Telecommunications and Integrated Applications Directorate at ESA.

The session will be moderated by Gordon Campbell, Head of the Industry Office for Earth Observation Programmes at ESA.

‘Space for Twin Cities: 5G’ will take place at 17:00 CET on 27 January and will be screened live on ESA Web TV.

Following the presentations, there will be an open discussion with questions to the speakers.

You can pose questions during the hour-long webinar using the hashtag #AskESA on social media.