Swarms of cooperative Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a new promising solution for accomplishing complex and large scale tasks, that would be challenging or even impossible for a single UAV. Coordinating multiple UAVs towards a common mission is quite challenging, as multiple operational factors must be ensured in terms of flight reliability, safety, resource allocation and ubiquitous communications. This paper presents an integrated UAV swarm management platform for autonomous area and infrastructure inspection and proposes a novel network architecture for relaying swarm communications in underserved areas. Real trials and measurements were performed on the field, providing preliminary results and proof-of-concept insights.

Τhis paper focuses on the latest trends on software defined radio platforms based on open source software and aims to highlight the benefits that these platforms offer in terms of flexibility and cost. The requirements of hardware and the special features of operating systems that enable the SDR software to run on x86-64 systems are presented in detail. Moreover an emphasis is given to the software architectures used in open source projects implementing wireless protocols. As a paradigm of an open source SDR platform we emulate a 5G system, based on Open Air Interface software and docker engine, installed on a Linux PC. Finally, the main aspects of this emulation are presented and conclusions are made.

The fifth generation (5G) mobile networks have adapted new features compared to the previous generation that resulted in increased overall throughput and decreased latency. At the same time the complexity of 5G-based standards and deployment scenarios has increased. The new features of the physical layer gather interest not only in the development of software, but also in the field of measurements and performance evaluation, among the research community. This paper proposes a flexible End-to-End (E2E) standalone 5G system platform that can be fully reprogrammable and customizable to serve as a basis for research that can be expanded to all aspects of a 5G system design. The main capabilities and use cases of the platform are presented and conclusions are made based on the conducted tests and measurements.

Reliable and ubiquitous communications, offering high data rates, low latency and supporting large numbers of connected devices, are critical requirements for modern emergency rescue missions. Multiple teams of First Responders, operating at remote areas, on rough terrain or under harsh conditions (e.g. wildfires, earthquakes, flooding etc.) need seamless connectivity to send/receive mission data and organize their operations. This paper, based on the communication platform of RESPOND-A project for supporting First Responders' missions, proposes a communication relay architecture for extending the 5G network, covering network gaps or underserved areas, while still supporting the mission requirements. Preliminary field measurements were also taken for providing a proof-of-concept and evaluating the systems' performance.