Phones on drones to fly at Kansas Speedway
Starting next month, the action at the Kansas Speedway will be up there, overhead. We’re talking about phones on drones.
The website FierceWirelessTech reported that Nokia is asking for federal permission to fly three smart phones on a drone over the speedway starting next month.
There are no races scheduled until fall. So what’s the deal?
Nokia is calling the exercises “network performance optimization – tools practice.”
FierceWirelessTech said Nokia wants to run three months of tests at the speedway to figure out ways to collect data on wireless networks when big crowds gather. Nokia is trying to prove the concept of phones on drones for the task, the report said.
The report linked to Nokia’s application, technically filed by Alcatel-Lucent which Nokia acquired.
Here’s what it said: “Purpose of this operation is to perform tests measuring radio frequency signal strength of a mobile network using a drone (UAV) with 3 commercial smartphones (UEs) attached to it....Test to be conducted at the Kansas City Speedway in Kansas during a three month window starting June 2016.”
The address listed on the application confirms the tests would be the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. Tests are set to run June 15 through Dec. 14, the application said.
It means race fans might look up when they hear those engines rev come September.
Mark Davis: 816-234-4372, on Twitter @mdkcstar
This story was originally published May 13, 2016 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Phones on drones to fly at Kansas Speedway."