MECON
About the *project.*
A vast portion of the globe, including remote rural areas, expansive ocean territories, and regions affected by natural disasters, remains remains underserved by terrestrial 5G networks, which lack the reach and economic feasibility to deliver continuous, high-quality service everywhere. This service gap creates critical vulnerabilities, particularly in emergency response scenarios where communication infrastructure is often the first casualty of a disaster.
MECON addresses this by researching, designing, and developing the technologies needed to seamlessly integrate Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), mainly Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks, into a unified network spanning current 5G systems and future 6G. The goal is comprehensive global coverage and reliable connectivity at all times, reducing dependency on physical site infrastructure and enabling immediate operational coverage.
The Operational Experimentation campaign is divided into three phases covering project management, system preparation, testing, deployment, field experimentation, data collection, and final reporting.
Key *objectives.*
AI-Driven Network Orchestration
Apply artificial intelligence to orchestrate and mobilize the vast, fluctuating resources of satellite and terrestrial components, ensuring optimal routing, load balancing, and quality of service across highly dynamic conditions.
Interference Detection and Cancellation
Develop cutting-edge techniques to manage signal propagation and interference caused by dense LEO orbital layers, maintaining signal integrity and performance despite proximity and high satellite mobility.
Radio Resource Management and Scheduling
Build sophisticated resource management and scheduling techniques to dynamically allocate bandwidth between terrestrial users, satellite users, and fast-moving assets like drones.
O-RAN Architecture Integration
Adopt open, decoupled O-RAN interfaces to promote vendor diversity, accelerate innovation, and increase the flexibility and resilience of the network core, a vital step toward 6G.
Beyond Vision's *role*.
Beyond Vision brings real-world drone expertise to MECON, playing a central role in two of the project's three main use cases. Our UAVs act as aerial mobile network nodes, connecting first responders without ground coverage to the LEO satellite backbone during disasters, and collecting data from remote IoT devices (such as pipeline and environmental monitors) for relay through high-capacity satellite links.
This work anchors MECON's final goal: a full-scale demonstration of UAVs and edge computing integrated into 5G/6G infrastructure.