Xilinx FPGA Innovation Empowerment: The World's First UAV 5G Base Station

At the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) held in Shanghai a few days ago, electronics enthusiasts saw the world's first drone 5G communication base station at the Xilinx booth. This innovative product uses Xilinx's FPGA chip.

The drone high-altitude base station is the world's first tethered drone base station based on 5G base stations. Zhu Yong, director of business development of Xilinx data center, introduced to electronic enthusiast reporters at the exhibition that this drone 5G base station adopts Xilinx 16nm SoC, which supports flexible split methods and can achieve 100M signal bandwidth.

Unlike traditional quadcopter drones, this is a tethered drone that is powered by ground wiring, so it can theoretically support infinite hovering times. It can meet the communication needs of emergency rescue in the field of sudden disasters, emergency handling of emergencies, super-large events, field inspections and archaeological live broadcast activities without communication signals, etc.

Mr. Zhu introduced that this drone base station can fly to an altitude of 200 meters within 15 minutes. It adopts high-power 5GRRU, and the peak rate can reach more than 1Gb/s, covering more than 5 kilometers in semi-public. Effectively solve the big data transmission problem in emergency communication.

The electronics enthusiast reporter saw that this drone 5G base station is provided by Baicells. In order to adapt to the application of the drone environment, the entire 5GRRU adopts a weight reduction scheme design, under the condition of 2x20W maximum transmission power , the weight of the whole machine does not exceed 10kg, which effectively reduces the weight and power consumption of the tethered UAV high-altitude base station, reduces the operating cost of the system, and improves the environmental adaptability of the system.

Xilinx also showcased other innovative products at this CIIE, such as a robotic arm for the education market based on PYNQ.

Apogee1000, a fully digital color Doppler ultrasound diagnostic instrument from Shantou Ultrasound, is a portable color ultrasound that integrates cloud technology, using Xilinx 28nm FPGA.

Six-axis industrial robotic arm

Data center with ALVEO accelerator card inserted

Lu Jiahua, director of education and academic cooperation at Xilinx, also said in an interview with electronics enthusiast reporters at the CIIE that after Xilinx completed the acquisition of Shenjian Technology, Xilinx will continue to pay attention to and support innovation in the future. Introduce more development boards based on ZYNQ to support developers. (The development board trial cooperation between electronic enthusiasts and Xilinx will be launched soon. Developers are welcome to pay attention to the official trial website (http://bbs.elecfans.com/try.html) and apply for Xilinx development boards for free.