OQ Technology wins ‘5G IoT over Satellite’ contract from European Space Agency

OQ Technology, a Dubai/Luxembourg-based satellite 5G IoT start-up, has won its fourth contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the first contract under the ESA’s ARTES Advanced Studies programme.

The contract was settled to OQ Technology after a pan-European tendering process that started in Q2 2020 last year under the topic “Agile Network Configuration for 5G Internet-of-Things Services over Satellite”.

OQ submitted a proposal for addressing the technical design and development of a system to address advanced 5G network configurations over LEO, MEO and GEO satellites. It will lead a consortium made of the SigCom Research Group at SnT (University of Luxembourg) and Leaf Space (Italy) to perform the tasks under the contract.

OQ Technology has been working on applying cellular 5G IoT technologies and services since 2016.

OQ Technology will develop and test a state-of-the-art testbed that will demonstrate end-to-end scenarios for Agile Network Configuration for 5G Internet-of-Things over Satellites. The test-bed itself will comprise of an architecture that is able to address LEO, MEO and GEO use cases and QoS metrics comprising of a user segment, a space segment and a ground segment.

The SigCom Research Group at SnT will leverage its technical experience and contribute to this project as an academic partner. The team will be involved in defining and adapting network slicing concepts and solutions for Satellite-based IoT functions; and also design the algorithms that have high relevance to enabling 5G Satellite IoT functions. These solutions will then be implemented by OQ technology using agile software solutions on the testbed.

Leaf Space S.r.l. Italy is a high-tech company that offers dedicated ground segment services for microsatellites operators. In this capacity, Leaf Space will define the Ground Station Network Requirements and will develop the testbed that will emulate the relevant functions and behaviour of a single Ground Station (or Gateway) providing a simulation of the dataflow from the RF signal received from a satellite (downlink) to the data delivered to the network operator.