Noordwijk – Netherlands (27.05.2021)

OQ TECHNOLOGY wins its fourth contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the first one under the ARTES Advanced Studies program. The contract was settled to OQ TECHNOLOGY after a pan European tendering process that started in Q2 2020 last year under the topic “AGILE NETWORK CONFIGURATION FOR 5G INTERNET-OF-THINGS SERVICES OVER SATELLITE” (ARTES AT 3A.109).

Being a global pioneer new-space company in the field of 5G IoT and machine communication over satellites, OQ submitted a proposal for addressing the technical design and development of a system to address advanced 5G network configurations over LEO, MEO and GEO satellites. OQ TECHNOLOGY will lead a consortium made of The SigCom Research Group at SnT (University of Luxembourg) and Leaf Space (Italy) to perform the tasks under the contract.

OQ TECHNOLOGY has been working on applying cellular 5G IoT technologies and services since 2016. It was the first company in the world to test Narrowband IoT over LEO nanosatellites, and it is currently building a global constellation to offer 5G IoT services in remote and rural areas. The company holds important satellite NB-IoT patents and is a member of 3GPP. With its satellite scheduled for launch this year OQ TECHNOLOGY is ready to deliver commercial 5G services over satellite this year.

Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications exhibit immense diversity in traffic volume and statistical characteristics. Numerous industries have foreseen that the world will want and need more and more interconnected devices.

One of the main visions of 5G connectivity is the convergence of multiple technologies both from the satellite and the terrestrial world. Network slicing is a strong enabler of this goal, by approaching the share and use of all physical infrastructure and focusing on the application and use case as a primary criterion for network orchestration and service provision at a logical and software perspective. As a part of the 5G ecosystem satellites are envisioned as a coherent part of this shared infrastructure.

Below a summary of the responsibilities of each consortium member under this contract:

OQ Technology, Luxembourg

OQ Technology shall develop and test a state-of-the-art test bed that shall demonstrate end-to-end scenarios for Agile Network Configuration for 5G Internet of Things over Satellites. In this activity OQ Technology shall actively define use cases and scenarios based on Industry needs and shall use it to derive the test-bed design amongst other criteria. The test-bed itself shall comprise of an architecture that is able to address LEO, MEO and GEO use cases and QoS metrics for network configuration and deployment for 5G Internet of Things over Satellites comprising of a user segment, a space segment and a ground segment.

Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg

The SigCom Research Group at SnT will leverage its technical experience and contribute to this project as an academic partner. The team will be actively involved in defining and adapting network slicing concepts and solutions for Satellite-based IoT functions; and also design the algorithms that have high relevance to enabling 5G Satellite IoT functions. These solutions will then be implemented by OQ technology using agile software solutions on the testbed.

Leaf Space S.r.l. Italy

Leaf Space S.r.l. Italy is a high-tech company that offers dedicated ground segment services for microsatellites operators. In this capacity, Leaf Space will define the Ground Station Network Requirements and will develop the test bed of the Ground Station Segment that will emulate the relevant functions and behaviour of a single Ground Station (or Gateway) providing a simulation of the dataflow from the RF signal received from a satellite (downlink) to the data delivered to the network operator.

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