Lufthansa Technik has installed its own its own private wireless networks based on the latest standard 5G for two innovation projects in the field of VIP completion and engine overhaul at its Hamburg base.
For testing the technology, Lufthansa Technik has set up two separate private 5G networks at its Hamburg base, with different network providers – Vodafone and Nokia.
Instead of extending publicly available mobile networks to the Lufthansa base, a completely independent infrastructure has been installed, with its own antennas and servers that can only be accessed by Lufthansa Technik. Therefore, “LH-Technik” appears as the network operator in the display of the mobile devices used.
In a statement Lufthansa Technik said it was the first firm outside of Asia to operate a fully-fledged standalone 5G network based on the new standard in an industrial environment.
According to Lufthansa Technik this enables higher security and a completely free configuration, which allows the company’s own 5G networks to be adapted exactly to the requirements of the respective evaluation projects, for example in the ratio of upload and download bandwidth.
The new 5G network technology will benefit two innovation projects, with which the company is testing new technologies in the areas of engine overhaul and VIP completion.
One project uses augmented reality to virtually visualize the 3D design data of the planned cabin interior in empty aircraft fuselages. By means of live data transmission, the technicians on site always have the opportunity to check the current position of all planned components and, additionally, to coordinate any necessary changes with the developers through collaborative video functions.
In the second project, the “Virtual Table Inspection”, customers can remotely attend the inspection of engine parts and no longer have to travel to Hamburg for it.
Both projects have a very high demand for bandwidth for wireless data transmission, which Lufthansa Technik said could not be covered adequately by the previous 4G and Wi-Fi technologies.
“The public 4G upload rate was often no longer sufficient for high-resolution video streams, and the Wi-Fi standard, as an alternative, is not designed for a change of location between individual cells, which previously often led to connection terminations,” the firm said in a statement.
“5G technology solves both problems at once, as it not only enables a significantly higher data transmission rate (in the final expansion stage up to 10 Gbit/s compared to a maximum of 1Gbit/s for 4G/LTE), but also allows mobile devices to switch smoothly between individual radio cells,” the statement added.
The German Federal Network Agency has approved Lufthansa Technik’s use of the company’s own frequencies accordingly. Lufthansa Technik said tha If 5G proves successful with the users in the two innovation projects, the technology will be rolled out to other divisions within the firm in the near future.
Soeren Stark, Member of Lufthansa Technik’s Executive Board, responsible for technical operations, logistics and IT said, .”The first two application cases already demonstrate the valuable contribution 5G technology can make to the aviation industry.
