Addressing Key Questions in 5G Security and AI in Public Safety Communications

Airbus has announced its active participation in a pioneer research programme called PRIORITY, launched with Finnish government funding in August. Over a two-year period, the programme aims to find answers to various key research questions in the fields of 5G security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), rural area coverage and quality of service in hybrid networks, improving critical communications and situational awareness for public safety users.

The programme consortium, chaired by Airbus, consists of some twenty key stakeholders from the Finnish public safety community; amongst them are research organisations, enterprises, user organisations and a mobile operator.

Airbus will focus research on enhanced critical communications services, network analytics and machine learning in the field of public safety, with emphasis on the use of AI. This includes automatic security assistance, crowd anomaly detection and data analytics.

“The market is witnessing a major shift in public safety communications and operations due to technological evolution, as well as new environmental and criminal threats. In the future, artificial intelligence will be essential for our customers from public safety organisations, both to improve the efficiency of mission critical operations and the safety and security of societies,” explains Tapio Savunen, Strategic Marketing Director for Secure Land Communications at Airbus and chairman of the PRIORITY programme steering group. “Public Safety users such as police, fire and rescue personnel have specific requirements, which grow beyond those of consumers or enterprises. These include high availability, reliability of services and uncompromised security. At Airbus, our priority is to follow and anticipate technological trends to be ready to provide tailored solutions, perfectly adapted to our customers. Research programmes like this one are powerful tools, which help to bundle resources and share know-how between key players in the public safety domain.”