Lockheed Martin Deploys AI-Powered Drone Detection System on Verizon's 5G Network

Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin has partnered with Verizon and other tech companies to demonstrate how existing 5G networks can power AI-enabled systems for detecting, tracking, and monitoring unmanned aerial systems (UASs), commonly known as drones.

The demonstration in Miami, Florida, showcased the NetSense Airspace Awareness-as-a-Service system, which uses commercial off-the-shelf technology to detect UASs. Verizon provided the 5G network spectrum for NetSense, which utilized AI-native radio access network software from ORAN Development Company (ODC), Nvidia's AI Aerial platform, and an advanced radio frequency simulation platform from Keysight Technologies to detect and alert the demo team to the presence of drones.

The system combines Lockheed Martin's warning and tracking technology with AI to read radio frequency (RF) disturbances, which can then predict and track a drone's flightpath, automatically sending real-time alerts. Nvidia's AI Aerial feeds its analysis of the signal disturbances into Lockheed Martin's NetSense algorithms.