A drone appeared on a large screen as a small dot. Within seconds, a second drone launched to intercept it. The whole thing unfolded on a balcony near AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and no radar was involved.
AT&T and Ericsson ran the demonstration during the World Cup to show off a technology called Integrated Sensing and Communication, which uses standard 5G cell towers to detect and track objects flying through the air. The demo focused on drones, but the same approach could be used to track vehicles or people within range of a 5G network, according to a report by CNET.
The system used three cell towers in a setup the companies called a multistatic sensing configuration. Each tower contained Ericsson Massive MIMO radios, the same type found on cell sites around the country, with a sensing capability turned on. The towers were spaced about 1.6 miles from the demonstration area.
When a drone entered the sensing zone, the system's software used signal processing and AI algorithms to classify it. In the demonstration, it identified a drone flying at about 11 mph. AT&T said the system can track swarms of drones, not just individual ones. The range of detection can reach up to 6 kilometers.
The demonstration came at a moment when drone incidents at major events are drawing serious attention. The FBI said more than 700 drones were confiscated by U.S. agencies during the World Cup, some piloted by operators who did not know they had flown into extended no-fly zones.
Radar systems can track aircraft, but they tend to scan at high altitudes and need dedicated hardware. A cellular network already exists. It covers most of the United States through tens of thousands of towers and cell sites. Robert Soni, vice president of Radio Access Network technology at AT&T, pointed to the company's 75,000 sites across North America as a reason the approach could scale quickly.
The drones in the demonstration were flying at around 300 to 400 feet. Planners for events like the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles are watching developments in this area closely, given how difficult small drones can be to detect and intercept using traditional methods.
