Innovate UK funded R&D, led by Aerix
PRISM: resilient 5G for drones on land, at sea and in the air
Four UK organisations are building one shared 5G network at the National Drone Hub in Cornwall that serves the public mobile networks, a private network for drone control, and satellite where the land runs out.
£2.7m
programme
£1.9m
Innovate UK funding
4
UK organisations
24
months, Oct 2026 to Sep 2028
3
domains: land, sea and air
Drones need a signal where there isn’t one
Flying a drone beyond the pilot’s line of sight, to inspect a wind farm, search a stretch of coast or carry medical supplies, depends on a reliable link for control, telemetry and video. Yet only around 8% of the UK’s land area has 5G coverage, and the airfields, ports and offshore sites where drones are most useful often have almost none. Public networks are also built for people on the ground: a fast-moving aircraft hopping from cell to cell is precisely the case they handle worst.
Building a separate network for every need, one per mobile operator, a private network for flight control and a satellite link for the gaps, is too expensive for most sites. PRISM, short for Private and Resilient Infrastructure for Shared Mobile networks, tests the alternative: one shared set of UK-made radios serving all of them at once, proven at Predannack Airfield in Cornwall, on a patrol boat offshore and in the air.
What it means for people who use 5G
PRISM is built around drones, but the problems it tackles are ones every mobile user recognises: no signal, dropped connections, and networks that give up when conditions are worst.
Coverage where operators have not built
One radio can carry customers of several mobile networks at once, known as neutral host, alongside a private network. Sharing the cost makes good 5G viable in places no operator would build alone, starting with one of the most poorly connected corners of Cornwall.
Never out of touch
A single multi-network SIM moves between public 5G, private 5G and low-earth-orbit satellite as coverage changes, keeping the session alive. When the land network runs out, the connection falls back to satellite rather than dropping.
No drop-outs on the move
Antevia’s patented fronthaul multiplexer blends several radios into one logical cell, so a fast-moving drone or vehicle does not have to hand over from mast to mast. Extra reference signals help the network track moving users, keeping service fair between those in the air and those on the ground.
Connectivity at sea
A 5G network mounted on a Wholeship patrol boat, linked back to shore by point-to-point microwave and satellite, carries coverage out over the water, where drones inspect offshore wind farms and search the coast.
Safer flights, by design
Drone command and control travels on its own private 5G bearer, isolated from public traffic, with mutual authentication and traffic separation built in from the start rather than added later.
Holds up under pressure
The network is tested deliberately under interference, faults and overload in a controllable radio environment, and what is learned goes straight back into the radio software. A network that stays up when conditions are worst serves everyone on it better.
Built in Britain. UK-manufactured radios, run by UK operators on shared-access spectrum licensed by Ofcom. PRISM builds a home-grown capability for resilient connectivity in places that matter to industry, the emergency services and national resilience.
How it fits together
PRISM combines four layers of innovation on one shared infrastructure, first at the airfield and then extended offshore.
The work runs as three design, deploy, test and learn cycles, each building on the last: the airfield on its own, then the airfield with the boat and satellite, then the whole system with multiple drones in the air.
Shared-cell radio
- n77 shared-access spectrum, 3.8 to 4.2 GHz
- Radios from different vendors combined as one logical cell
- Dual-carrier operation and Antevia’s multiplexer for high-mobility drones
Public, private and satellite together
- One shared infrastructure serving mobile operators and a private 5G network
- NB-IoT satellite bearer for continuity when out of land coverage
- Seamless handover between satellite and terrestrial networks
Maritime radio
- Shared-cell network mounted on Wholeship’s offshore patrol boat
- Marine-grade design for motion, multipath and salt spray
- Point-to-point mmWave and low-earth-orbit satellite backhaul
Operations, security and benchmarking
- Cloud-native 5G standalone core, with one dashboard across SIM, device, site and network
- Security by design for safety-critical drone control
- Benchmarks of energy per bit, hardware footprint and total cost of ownership
Design, deploy, test, learn
Three test cycles from summer 2027 to summer 2028: an airfield baseline; the airfield with the boat and satellite; then full-system optimisation with multiple drones, integrated sensing and communications, and cybersecurity testing.
Proven where drones actually fly
PRISM is tested at a working UK drone site, offshore and in the air, rather than in a lab.
The National Drone Hub
Predannack Airfield, Cornwall, with Wholeship
An active Ministry of Defence airfield on the Lizard peninsula, where Wholeship hosts commercial drone operators flying beyond visual line of sight in an area with almost no advanced mobile coverage. PRISM builds a permanent indoor and outdoor 5G network here.
An offshore patrol boat
Wholeship, off the Cornish coast
A second network mounted on the boat extends coverage over the sea, backhauled by point-to-point microwave and satellite, for drones working offshore.
In the air
Beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights
Drones crossing between airfield, sea and satellite coverage test what matters most: that control, telemetry and video keep flowing as the aircraft moves.
The Predannack photograph is real; the boat and drone images are illustrative.
The consortium
Four UK organisations with the radios, the network, the SIMs and the site between them. Aerix and Antevia already work together on shared-cell 5G elsewhere; PRISM takes that work to the airfield and out to sea.
Aerix
Project lead: the 5G core, operations dashboard, integration and testing.
Antevia Networks
UK manufacturer of the 5G Shift radios and fronthaul multiplexer; leads the airfield and boat radio networks.
Wholeship
Operator of the National Drone Hub at Predannack; hosts the site and patrol boat and leads the drone use cases.
IQ Mobile
Mobile virtual network operator: SIMs, subscriber management and the route to satellite.
Shared with the rest of the industry
The designs and benchmarks PRISM produces will be published, so drone operators, ports and other site owners can decide how to connect on evidence rather than vendor claims.
- A validated shared-cell architecture with quantified benchmarks
- A live shared-cell network at Predannack and on the offshore patrol boat
- A reference architecture for handover between satellite and terrestrial networks
- Open benchmarks of energy per bit and cost against conventional macro sites
- Run-books, a case study and a pack for commercial deployment
Timeline
October 2026
Project starts. Drone use cases and network requirements agreed with Wholeship and its operators.
By mid-2027
Airfield 5G network designed and live at Predannack, with the core, SIMs and satellite bearer integrated.
Spring 2027 to early 2028
Network designed and fitted to the offshore patrol boat, with microwave and satellite backhaul.
Summer 2027 to summer 2028
Three design, deploy, test and learn cycles, ending in full-system optimisation.
September 2028
Project completes, with published benchmarks and a model other sites can repeat.
At time of writing the project has just begun. We will add results here as the network goes live.
Follow the project
If you fly drones, run a port, airfield or remote site, or build connectivity products yourself, we would like to hear from you.
Media enquiries: Peter Gradwell, peter.gradwell@aerix.uk
PRISM is funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, under the Solution Development for Advanced Connectivity Technologies competition (project 10201430).