WIoT team Wins First Prize at IEEE Advanced Air Mobility – Concepts Innovation Challenge
A team of researchers with the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) consisting of computer engineering students Matteo Bordin, PhD’26, and Pietro Brach Del Prever, PhD’27, and led by ECE Research Assistant Professor Salvatore D’Oro, won first prize at the IEEE Advanced Air Mobility – Concepts Innovation Challenge, a challenge to engage undergraduate and graduate students across the world in developing novel concepts in unmanned air transportation.
The award comes with a $2K monetary award. The winning concept proposed by the team is based on the deep and applied research performed at the WIoT at the intersection of intelligent unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and Open RAN technologies – which are being pioneered and disseminated by the WIoT and its researchers. The project aims at making 5G networks more intelligent and reliable by combining Open RAN, AI and automated orchestration technologies that move intelligence and edge services closer to the flying UAVs to ensure ubiquitous connectivity and ultra-low latency. The solution proposed by WIoT researchers is very much needed to advance UAV-based applications and make them part of our daily lives, especially in those Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) applications such as automated package delivery, infrastructure monitoring, asset tracking and smart cities.