Flying 5G base station: Schiebel and Hanwha Systems turn unmanned helicopters into communication nodes

The Austrian drone manufacturer Schiebel and the South Korean defence group Hanwha Systems intend to significantly expand their cooperation. At its core is a flying 5G base station: together, the partners aim to develop Schiebel's unmanned helicopters into airborne communication nodes, complemented by data relays and solutions against electronic warfare.

Hanwha Systems and the Vienna-based company launched the development of a new generation of unmanned systems for communication tasks in Seoul in mid-August. This is based on an exclusive memorandum of understanding that the two sides had already signed in Austria in May.

The core of the project is to combine Schiebel's unmanned platforms with communication and avionics systems from Hanwha. In future, the drones are to carry compact 5G base stations and relay technology aloft, among other things. This should make it possible to establish or extend tactical communication networks between ground forces and between aircraft, even under difficult operating conditions.

Flying 5G base station with protection against interference

Both companies place great emphasis on resilience against electronic warfare. Among other things, Hanwha Systems plans to develop particularly small and lightweight 5G base station modules for high frequency (HF), as well as systems for relaying communications from the air.

Navigation solutions are added to this: they are intended to ensure that the aircraft can determine its position and attitude even under heavy enemy interference. Further technologies are to keep communication links up for as long as possible even under jamming.

The companies are thus responding to a central challenge of modern battlefields. Communication networks increasingly have to be mobile, offer long ranges and at the same time be protected against electronic countermeasures. A drone serving as a flying communication node could, for example, establish links over greater distances or in difficult terrain and extend the range of ground-based networks.

Expansion to the army

The cooperation between the two companies is not entirely new, however. Since 2023, Hanwha Systems has been involved as system integrator in South Korean programmes concerning ship-based reconnaissance drones for the Navy and the Marine Corps, as well as operations on the northwestern islands. These use Schiebel's Camcopter S-300 unmanned helicopter.

Data and experience from these programmes are now to feed into new solutions for land forces, above all for communication tasks in mobile land operations. As the partners can rely on proven platforms and existing test data, they expect shorter development times and lower costs than a completely new development would entail.

Sales network as door opener

At the same time, the cooperation has an industrial-policy dimension for Hanwha. The group would like to integrate its communication, radar and avionics systems into Schiebel's platforms, ideally as standardised payloads. Through the Austrian manufacturer's international sales network, South Korean systems could thus open up new export markets.

According to Hanwha, Schiebel, which is headquartered in Vienna, now supplies more than 40 military, government and civil customers worldwide with unmanned systems – including users in Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

In view of the rapidly changing global drone market, we want to further expand our medium- and long-term cooperation with Schiebel and take a leading role in technologies for the next generation of unmanned systems— a representative of Hanwha Systems

According to the representative, the company also wants to create new opportunities to deploy and export its avionics systems in South Korea.

Schiebel, for its part, gains a broader range of applications for its platforms through the cooperation: the classic unmanned aircraft system (UAS) for reconnaissance is increasingly to evolve into a flying communication node for the networked battlefield, hardened against electronic warfare.