Mobile Networks May Soon Help Track Low-Flying Drones
Ericsson is developing a way for cellular networks to detect and follow low-flying drones, with limited commercial trials planned for 2027.
According to TechRadar, Ericsson is developing technology that would let mobile networks detect and follow drones flying at low altitude, without depending entirely on dedicated surveillance equipment. The company calls the approach Integrated Sensing and Communication, or ISAC. It analyzes radio signals that bounce off flying objects and uses existing cellular infrastructure to work out how those objects are moving.
The outlet reports that AT&T and Erillisverkot, a Finnish provider of communications networks for government and public safety, have already tested Ericsson's network sensing technology. Ericsson plans to begin limited commercial trials in 2027 and then expand availability to more customers, although the TechRadar account does not lay out the full timetable for that wider rollout.
TechRadar presents the idea as a way that cell towers could become additional tools for spotting unauthorized aircraft. Drone detection is often handled by specialized radar, radio-frequency or camera systems, and the report raises the possibility that everyday mobile infrastructure could supplement or eventually reduce reliance on those products.
The TechRadar account does not describe how accurate the system is, which types of drones it has been tested against, how detections would be handled, or who would be able to access the resulting data. Those questions remain open.
Background
Drones have spread quickly from hobby use into commercial work such as photography, inspection, delivery and agriculture. That growth has raised concerns about aircraft flying near airports, prisons, stadiums, emergency scenes and other sensitive sites. Many governments regulate where drones may fly and require some form of identification, but enforcement depends on being able to find an aircraft in the first place, and small drones are hard to see on conventional radar because they are low, slow and often made of materials that reflect little signal.
Detection has therefore become a specialized market. Agencies and operators typically buy systems that combine several sensors, such as radar, radio-frequency monitoring that picks up control links, acoustic arrays and cameras. These systems are usually installed for particular locations and events, which limits how widely they can cover open airspace.
Cellular networks have their own long-standing use of radio signals. Base stations send and receive signals across wide areas, and engineers have known for years that reflections from nearby objects carry information about their position and motion. Radar works on this same principle. Standards bodies that set cellular specifications have discussed integrating sensing into communication networks, so that one set of radio waves could both carry data and describe the surrounding environment. Ericsson's work fits within that broader direction, which has been a research topic across the telecom industry.
Why it matters
If mobile networks can reliably detect low-flying aircraft, the tools available to protect airspace could expand considerably. Operators already have towers in many places, which could make broad coverage cheaper than deploying dedicated equipment everywhere. For public safety agencies, a system that uses infrastructure they already rely on could also be easier to integrate into existing response work.
The shift also changes who is involved. Mobile carriers would move from providing connectivity to helping monitor the airspace above their customers. That raises practical questions about responsibilities, liability and the relationship between network operators and government agencies. It also creates a new kind of data, since a system that tracks moving objects in the air could, in principle, reveal patterns about movement on the ground or about who is operating a device.
For companies that sell standalone drone detection hardware, the technology is a potential competitive threat, though it is not yet clear whether network-based sensing will match specialized systems in precision or reliability. Much will depend on whether trial results are convincing and whether regulators accept the approach as a dependable part of airspace management.
What to watch
The first signal will come from the planned 2027 commercial trials. Observers should look for details on detection range, accuracy, the types of drones involved and how often the system misses or misidentifies an aircraft. Independent testing would give more weight to any performance claims than company statements alone.
Next, watch whether additional carriers or public safety agencies sign on beyond the current testers, and how the wider availability is structured. Questions about pricing, contracts and who controls the system will shape how useful it becomes in practice.
Finally, pay attention to policy. Rules about how long detection data can be kept, who may access it and how it can be used will determine whether network-based drone tracking becomes a routine security tool or remains a niche option.
Viewpoints
Commentary from our columns: three angles on this story.
The Skeptic open questions and weak points
Before anyone rewrites airspace security around cell towers, it is worth asking what has actually been shown. The reporting describes trials with two named partners, but it does not say how often the system correctly identifies a drone, how it performs in crowded or cluttered environments, or how it handles a hobbyist flying a small aircraft close to the ground. Those are the cases that matter most, and they are the ones that tend to get skipped in early announcements. Radio-based sensing is a real field of research, but a promising technique and a dependable product are very different things. A limited commercial trial in 2027 is a sensible next step, yet it should be treated as the start of the evidence, not the end of it. Until accuracy numbers are published and checked by people outside the company, the safest reading is that this is an interesting capability with open questions still attached.
The Builder the engineer's view
From an engineering standpoint, the appeal is obvious: the radio signals already traveling between towers and devices carry information about what they bounce off, so a network could sense its surroundings without a separate sensor grid. The hard part is the physics and the software. Low-altitude drones are small, slow and often hidden behind buildings or terrain, which means the system has to separate a real aircraft from clutter, weather and ordinary moving objects. Coverage is also uneven. A tower's view depends on where it is placed, how it is configured and how the surrounding landscape blocks or reflects signals. Engineers will want to see how the system behaves across different cell sites, how it updates tracks as a drone moves, and how it fits with the timing and bandwidth demands of normal network traffic. If it can do all that without degrading service, the design is clever. If it cannot, it will remain a useful supplement rather than a replacement.
The Rulebook privacy, safety and regulation
Any system that tracks objects through a mobile network raises immediate privacy and governance questions, even when its stated purpose is safety. The TechRadar account does not explain what data would be collected, how long it would be stored, who could see it or what limits would apply to using it for other purposes. Those choices matter. Network operators hold sensitive information about their customers, and a sensing capability built into that infrastructure could create pressure to widen its use over time. Public safety agencies will need clear rules about when they may request tracking, how their use is recorded and how people who are wrongly flagged can challenge that outcome. Regulators have an opportunity to set those standards before the technology is widely deployed rather than after problems appear. Good safety tools earn trust by being narrow, transparent and accountable, and this one should be held to the same standard from the start.