The ARA testbed will provide a means to develop and test hardware and software solutions for rural and farming communities on a 5G network. #pressrelease

June 29, 2022

1 Min Read

STOCKHOLM – Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) today announced an agreement with the National Science Foundation-funded Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program to supply Ericsson's industry-leading and globally-deployed Radio Access Network (RAN), core, and services in support of the Agriculture and Rural Communities (ARA) testbed at Iowa State University (ISU). Ericsson's contribution will help support advanced research around precision agriculture, rural broadband, renewable energy, and public safety. The ARA network will provide outdoor macro coverage extending across the ISU campus and surrounding areas to advance technical innovation.

At ISU, Ericsson will deploy Massive MIMO radios in multiple frequency bands. Some of the deployed radios will be shipping from the Ericsson 5G USA Smart Factory in Lewisville, Texas.

Ericsson is also providing a 5G Core hosted at its D-15 Innovation Lab, Santa Clara, California. To further enhance experimentation of use cases that require efficient, low latency processing at the edge, Ericsson will deploy locally within the ISU datacenter its latest small form factor, Local Packet Gateway inclusive a User Plane Function (UPF).

Use cases will be focused on enhancing farming and ranching operations, improving yields, automating operations through autonomy, implementing secure renewable energy sources, and improving public safety operations in rural America.

The news comes after PAWR issued an award to ISU in June 2021. Iowa State University and its partners became the fourth testbed in a diverse portfolio of large-scale PAWR research platforms located throughout the United States.

Read the full press release here.

Ericsson

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