Supporting Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Services in 5G Networks: New High-Level Architecture Integrating 5G With U-Space

To provide efficient, safe, and secure access to the airspace, the European Union has launched a set of new services called U-space that allow for the support of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) management and conflict prevention for flights in the airspace. These services are based on communication technology, which is expected to be the key enabler to unlock the underlying potential of UAV operations. In this regard, the 5G mobile network is envisioned to be the communication standard to support diverse UAV operations and applications. In this article, we propose a novel architecture that integrates 5G systems (5GSs) with U-space. The main aim consists of providing a reference design that demonstrates how 5G can support U-space services and shows the interactions among different stakeholders. Further, we introduce the 5G!Drones project, which relies on the proposed architecture to test UAV use-case scenarios on top of the 5G infrastructure.